


Faetouched

by RainonyourBack



Category: Shaman King (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Assassination Attempt(s), Ballroom Dancing, Denial of Feelings, F/F, F/M, Father figure bother figure, Feelings Realization, Human AU, Labyrinth AU, Marriage, Marriage Proposal, Memory Alteration, Multi, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Polyamory, Serious Injuries, Swordplay, Whump, Wild Hunt, they're all adults
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:15:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 61,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23936686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainonyourBack/pseuds/RainonyourBack
Summary: It’s not meant to be.After this Tamao has to go home in Japan and they’ll probably never see each other again. Jeanne has her books and a brilliant career ahead of herself. It’s far easier not to put words on things that aren’t meant to be.But they both have a taste for the romantic and whimsical. So they go to a party, and they play a game, and Jeanne accidentally gives Tamao away to the Goblin King.It’s not meant to be, but it’s clearly happening.
Relationships: Asakura Hao/Iron Maiden Jeanne, Asakura Hao/Iron Maiden Jeanne/Tamamura Tamao, Asakura Hao/Tamamura Tamao, Tamamura Tamao/Iron Maiden Jeanne
Comments: 5
Kudos: 5
Collections: Shaman King 2020 Big Bang





	1. Your eyes can be so cruel

**Author's Note:**

> This project has been a lot of fun! I don’t think I could have polished it that much without our current circumstances, but I really want to thank TsukasaLir and Cargodin, who helped me and cheered me on in our delightful Big Bang. They were my two assigned artists; as of now, you can see Cargodin's beautiful art embedded in the story.  
> I wouldn’t have managed without them and I cannot express my gratitude enough. You two are stars <3
> 
> The 2020 Shaman King Big Bang was a project mainly taking place in our discord server, where you can find the latest fandom news direct from our lovely Mankin Trad team, but also a lot of art, theory crafting, fic prompts, etc. We also reached out to people on tumblr and twitter. And here’s part of the results!
> 
> For all intents and purposes, this is a Labyrinth AU layered onto a domestic AU. No one is a Shaman here, though you will see familiar names and faces peeking through. It gets pretty rough at some point for our human heroines, but I'm sure they'll be fine!

Paris I University / 12:21

_Dequervains Syndrome, also known as Washerwoman’s sprain (col), is a tenosynovitis that affects the sheath that houses the 2 tendons called the extensor retinaculum and allows movement of the thumb…_

Deep in her book, Jeanne was desperately jamming her spoon into her cheek when the clink of a tray warned her of an incoming distraction.

She opened her mouth without looking up, ready to shoo the intruder with an excuse already half-formulated, when she felt a hand on hers. She recognized the pale pink polish.

“Tamao! I almost thought the tech guys had stolen you away.”

Her cheeks flushed prettily as she shook her head. If Jeanne had to be honest, Tamao was rarely not pretty. She had her own style, simple but put-together and matching, and she put a lot of work into her skin and make-up. None of that made her not awkward, but Jeanne did not mind. It was rather cute.

Right now, she seemed a little hot.

“No, I,” she was stuttering, “I was helping them. They have a lot of heavy equipment and… well, you know.”

Jeanne knew, indeed. The small team of wannabe sound engineers was not in the same program, exactly, but it ran parallel to theirs. She did not know them personally, but she had seen enough of them to know they were a gangly gang, very au-fait of all things technical but a little behind on the muscles involved with hauling heavy equipment from one place to the next. Tamao, on the other hand, had muscles, and that to them made her very attractive. Like she needed that, when her pretty face and the few years she had on most of them already got her all the looks.

At least they were smart enough not to make themselves obnoxious around them.

Tamao laughed awkwardly, and Jeanne laughed with her. Then she put her book away and made space for their lunch.

Tamao’s tray was, like her own self, very reasonable: salad without sauce, curry without meat, water without syrup.

Jeanne had negotiated two desserts in exchange of her starter, as well as a plate where foods of many colors and tastes happily – and sometimes unhappily – mixed.

“Your teeth will fall right off,” Tamao teased. “Hasn’t your father told you?”

“He’s a surgeon, not a dentist. He says it’s all cosmetic,” Jeanne said, affecting a haughty sneer. “You want some?”

Tamao’s smile faded. “Did something happen?”

“No, no, sorry.” A blunder. Discussing Marco Maxwell in public never really ended well. Case in point.

Sensing her trouble, Tamao handed her a bit of salad on her fork. Jeanne hesitantly looked at her plate, already chockfull, and then leaned in to take it from her fork. The act brought color to her own cheeks, but Tamao said nothing of it. Instead she used her free hand to squeeze Jeanne’s. “It’s okay.”

It would have to be, at least. There was a hole in the conversation, but it was soon bridged over.

“So, did you pick your play?”

Tamao speared a tomato, with the haunted look of someone who’d forgotten and just remembered they left the stove on. She was not, however, one to forget things. Between her classes, her revisions, and her demanding work hours, Jeanne knew she was very busy; she took it upon herself to remind her of things. Gently, she turned her wrist to squeeze her hand back.

“You still have a few days.”

“A few days until we give the play names to Mr Patch,” Tamao corrected, looking vaguely panicked. “The presentation is for the Friday after the next, right? And the real thing the Friday after?”

Jeanne swallowed her food and nodded. “Just making sure you knew.”

“Yes, yes. Not to worry. I know what I’ll pick.”

“Oh?” Forgetting about her chicken, Jeanne leaned forward, trying to guess. “Modern?”

“Yes.”

“Romantic?”

“In a way.”

“You can’t not tell me! I want to know!”

Tamao flushed more. “I – I’m sorry! It’s just… I’m not totally sure yet. It’s not that easy. What about you? Did you pick?”

Momentarily distracted, Jeanne nodded and threw herself back. Meal forgotten, she started going through her gigantic bag. She drew out anatomy books, three spiral notepads, and finally a thin leather-bound book. Its pages were edged in gold, and Tamao saw neither title nor author on the cover.

Jeanne held it towards her. Tamao carefully dried her hands on her napkin before reaching out for it. On the very first page, there were two words, carefully engraved. _The Labyrinth_. No author here, either.

“Where did that come from? It looks ancient.”

Jeanne nodded. “My grandfather gave it to me when I was really young. It was lost after,” and Jeanne didn’t say it but her face did, _it wasn’t lost, it was deliberately taken away and gotten rid of._ Tamao knew her faces now. She could connect the dots.

Their hands were still tightly laced together, and she squeezed one more time.

“So how did you come across this one?”

“I found it at the book fair in March. Magnificent, don’t you think? The guy just gave it to me. Said nobody would buy it.”

“That’s not a good salesman,” Tamao said absently as she turned the first few pages. They were yellow, but not fragile. It felt rather like someone had aged the paper voluntarily. The letters were embossed, and the font was strangely easy to read in spite of demandingly fancy curls. A real artistic work. Just given away, she seemed to ponder, and Jeanne whole-heartedly agreed it was more than a steal.

“I guess he didn’t know what he was doing,” Jeanne shrugged.

But her friend took the conversation down a road she hadn’t expected.

“I didn’t know that you… that you knew your grandfather?”

Jeanne blinked. Ah, right. Tamao was quick on the uptake, but they hadn’t known each other that long. It was one of the reasons their friendship was so easy. She had never heard about the scandal, the fallout. She hadn’t even met Marco, just heard from him in Jeanne’s loving but tired tales.

“He’s not here anymore,” she simply said. “He moved away, and Marco doesn’t have the time to take me to see him.”

There, again, Tamao would understand more than what was said. The excuse wasn’t even that good. Jeanne was an adult, now. She could go alone. It wasn’t the money that could cause her trouble, it had never been.

Perhaps she should feel bad. Tamao didn’t have the money to visit her own family.

“That’s too bad,” was all she said. “I hope he does soon.”

A rather sorry Band-Aid for a very sore wound, but Jeanne accepted it. It wasn’t very likely to happen. The deeper she would go into her studies, the less she would have time for anything else. She would step further into her father’s world, and it was the ideal excuse to keep her from the southern lands the family patriarch now roamed.

“Thanks, Tam.” She appreciated the intent for what it was. “What do you think? Of the play?”

Tamao lowered her eyes towards the paper again. She held it against their clasped hands for easier reading.

“It’s… intriguing. Not the type of thing you…”

She glanced at Jeanne’s bag, always thick with medical books. Jeanne had gotten through the terrible first year exam – this was the only reason she was allowed in the theater program – but she was still supposed to keep ahead of her classmates. He had been so sure she would pass the exam that he had let her register for the summer program before the exam. Something she was glad for. It moved her, she had to admit, that he would let her have this, before it all started being crazy.

Like Tamao thought, the _Labyrinth_ wasn’t exactly Marco Maxwell’s favorite play. He preferred operas, anyway. Less wandering about the stage, he said. And he liked to hear his mother’s tongue so rigorously welded into song.

Tamao was aware of how… strict, Jeanne’s upbringing had been. Her clothes were old-fashioned but always impeccable, which made for a pretty good description of her in general. She sat straight in class, took extensive notes for everything, filed everything right away, and spoke in small and clipped sentences if she didn’t know the other person. It was painfully clear to her that none of this was natural. She could tell it pushed people away. Like she needed that, with her father looming over like a shadow.

Tamao was the first person who hadn’t been pushed away. They had been comfortable with each other from the beginning.

“I haven’t mentioned it to him. He would want it thrown out right away.”

“But why? It’s so pretty. The book, and the text, I mean.” Tamao handed her the book back, and turned their joined hands to look at her watch. “We’ll have to hurry if we don’t want to be late.”

They did not actually move, but Jeanne, as always worried she would not get to finish her desserts, started to eat faster.

“Will you come to mine’s, after class?”

Tamao blinked, and seemed to think about it. Perhaps she had work. She hadn’t said, but Jeanne worried as she nibbled on her last slice of cucumber.

“Is there an issue?”

“No, no, I’ll come. I can bring food.”

“Hey there, girls.”

Lyserg’s voice made Tamao go bright pink, and Jeanne withdrew her hand so fast she almost hurt her. She straightened in her seat and the book vanished into her bag. Not that her cousin wasn’t nice. He was adorable, and Tamao adored him. By some extraordinary coincidence he was pen pals with Tamao’s house’s oldest child and only son, as she’d told Jeanne in flushed confidence. It probably played a role in how well Marco tolerated her intrusion in Jeanne’s life. Lyserg vouched for Tamao, because Yoh did.

Again. Lyserg was adorable. But he had one task that made Jeanne clamp down every time he made an appearance: he was tasked with reporting on her health and activities to her father, and he did so diligently.

“Hello, Lyserg,” she said, keeping her smile warm. She knew he did not choose this. Marco was the one who had placed him in this awkward position. She loved him well enough. She loved them both. “Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s wonderful, thank you. I just wanted to check on you both.”

“As you can see, we’ve had a nice morning. Right, Tamao?”

Said Tamao was looking right into her empty plate, like she expected to be invisible somehow. “Y-yes, of course. It’s… it’s very nice to see you again, Lyserg.”

“The pleasure’s all mine.” With an easy smile on his lips, Lyserg sat beside Tamao and leaned over the table to hand Jeanne a slip of paper. “From the professor.”

She blinked, and her heart tightened. “What…?”

“No! I was joking. It’s new riddles for you to work on. Tamao, you’re allowed to help if she gets stuck.”

Jeanne sighed with relief. “That was in real poor taste, Lyserg.” The riddles were a game they played together, trading riddles and traps like other would sweets. Jeanne was frankly mediocre, but Lyserg kept trying to make her like it. And she did, though she rarely admitted so.

She opened the message with earnest curiosity, but she found no riddles inside. Instead it was a small poster advertising for a party the drama program students were throwing. That very night.

“What’s…”

“That’s the one they gave me,” he explained, his voice barely a whisper. “Now that you have it, there is no proof I ever knew of this party. I know you will both be careful. Have fun, alright?”

Before Jeanne could reply, he stood back up and walked away. She just watched him go, mouth hanging open.

Tamao gently took the poster from her slack hands. Neither of them had been given one such poster. Could it be that they’d been kept away from this on purpose…? She quickly scanned it through, and Jeanne just looked at her.

“It’s not very far from your place,” she said, at length. Then her eyes rose to meet Jeanne’s, who had been expecting anything but this. She gestured to the poster, as if she could have been speaking about anything else. “You want…?”

Jeanne glanced down at the paper. “I don’t know. There might be… there might be quite the crowd.” She did not mind, but she knew Tamao did.

“We could try it,” Tamao said, surprising her all over again. “We don’t have to stay all night. We could just… it could be fun.”

Jeanne stared into her eyes, trying to decipher what this could mean. Tamao was still pretty flushed. Perhaps she hoped Lyserg would ‘accidentally’ be at the party he didn’t officially know existed.

Her chest felt tight, suddenly. Tamao was a wonderful person. But it didn’t take a genius to know she was very, very obsessed with one boy in particular. She doodled him in the margins of her sketchbooks, agonized over the letters she sent him, kept a picture in her wallet. Jeanne had been with her through the afternoons. Once, when she was pleasantly boozed, Tamao’d given her his name, the tragic story Jeanne would have fawned over if it wasn’t about her dearest friend. One boy, who wasn’t her brother but almost her intended. One girl, newcomer to the house, the boy’s fiancée.

Tamao, left behind. Tamao, sent away to heal her broken heart and give the family hotel some international flair.

During the day she was too shy to. In a private setting like a party, would she dare? Ask him about Yoh? He probably had heard from him more recently than her, which was a tragedy all on its own.

Jeanne felt the familiar ache in her chest. It wasn’t easy to see her like this. Over a boy who was on the other side of the world and frankly not worth it, if he could bear to ignore pretty Tamao for anyone else.

Oh, well.

“We _will_ be late now,” she warned, biting into her brioche.

“Oh, no!”

_ Le Reflet_ , bar / 18:01

Music filled the bar to bursting, and then it burst, spilling out into the street to greet the chatting girls. The level of noise had Tamao grimace, but she could tell Jeanne really wanted to go. The younger girl held on to her hand and walked ahead, dragging her along like it would all disappear before they got there.

The evening was hot, even for August. Like every summer now there was a heatwave. People had gotten used to it; they did not let the heat stop the usual revelries of Saturday nights. It did mean the streets were busy; no one could go out during the day, so they did at night.

The drama program leaders had rented out the basement. Before they made their way there, Tamao stepped over to the bar to order drinks.

“One beer, please, and… A strawberry lemonade, please.”

“Coming right up!”

Glasses in hand, they went down stairs of stone that curved so harshly that Jeanne was afraid they’d slip. Tamao was ahead of her, maneuvering By some trick of magic they made it down safely, and then they came to face a boy that stood in the way.

“Oh, girls!” He was half-shaven and held a beer glass that was on the happy side of empty. He didn’t seem upset to see them. They’d been handed posters in the afternoon; no one had been trying to keep them away. “I didn’t know you’d come!”

This boy, Jeanne observed, had an easy smile and voice; he was rather friendly, although she knew he sometimes annoyed her. Something of a flirt, an actor born and bred as he liked to repeat, with twelve plays and a student movie under his belt.

“We had some free time,” Jeanne smiled, while Tamao floundered at her side. The guy’s eyes found hers, and his smile widened.

“Straight as an arrow as always, uh? Not even one hair out of place. Lucky for you it’s time to party and tousle some of that!”

“Lucky me,” she nodded, and then glanced beyond him to hint they wanted to get through. But he was too busy drooling over Tamao.

“I’m supposed to check people when they get here, but maybe I can have someone relieve me later,” he said. “Will you stay a while?”

Tamao flushed, and Jeanne subtly stepped in front of her. “We don’t know yet. Could we get through? With the drinks, you know…”

“Oh, of course. Once you’ve dumped your stuff, you can go see Ali for a free drink, on us.”

“Is it just beer?” Jeanne did not hide her dilemma.

“Nah, I think there’s juice, too. Go see with him.”

“Sure.”

They went by him and made their way to a bench already piled high with bags and jacket. There was one of the girls from the program, DJ-ing with her phone and amps. She had it a little less loud than upstairs, which Jeanne appreciated. It would help Tamao, too. She was the one who was guarding the bags.

“Welcome to you two! Have you had your free beer on us?”

Jeanne made to say they were on their way, and then just nodded. They still had full drinks, so they could afford to stand around sipping for a bit.

The place wasn’t too dirty: it was one of these cellars where you could see the old city rear up, paved stones under heavy concrete, old wood signaling windows long-since built over. There was a small that could have been that of the river.

“Would you dance, ladies?”

Jeanne turned her head. Another boy was trying to draw them – well, he had his eyes mostly on Tamao – to the dance floor. He seemed a little drunk already, but the music was good and someone had just switched on a disco ball. Tamao hesitated; Jeanne made the decision for them both.

“Yes, yes, we’re coming!”

And, leaving there the dumbfounded boy, she took Tamao’s hand and dragged her forward. When she saw the uncertainty in her eyes she gave her a bright smile. “We’re here to have fun, aren’t we? Let’s go!”

And so they did. Tamao did not know how to dance. Jeanne didn’t, either, but she didn’t care. Imitating their classmates, she started moving, throwing her limbs about like she was punching somebody. Tamao started shy, stealing glances around. In their own way, they were both trying to emulate the ease, the energy.

Then it washed over Jeanne like the tide had come in. Strength found her fingers and rose to her shoulders. That was when she felt like she started to really dance. Tamao did not find the same spark, and if she had still been on earth Jeanne would have noticed. Like this all she knew was that Tamao was there and part of this good time. In spite of her smaller size she became their guide.

The music grew stronger, entrancing, tempest-like. The beat was a clattering of thunder, the patter of all the dancers the rain. They all melted in the music until all that remained were Tamao’s hands in hers and her face in the haze.

And from this same haze rose a voice. Whoever was singing had found a good mic, because he could be heard perfectly above the music. He launched into a barytone ballad, and Jeanne looked towards the DJ to locate him.

It was indeed a he. He wore a costume right out of the playhouse’s wardrobe and a mask that covered his whole face. The fabrics looked expensive, too: crushed velvet, and dark purple tones.

A member of staff? A performer hired to entertain the troupe? That felt like a ridiculous expense. Whichever it was, he was doing a great job. His voice not only fit the music; it magnified it, dominated it, guided it.

Leaning forward, eyes still on the masked singer, she yelled in Tamao’s ear: “It was a great idea to come!”

Tamao’s cheeks were pink, and her hands were warm, so warm. When she nodded, it was vigorously. Jeanne was not thirsty, but she wondered if her friend maybe wanted a break. If she should offer. Tamao did not complain or ask for things. In fact, she refused things, when she thought people were overly concerned about her. Jeanne would have to pretend to be thirsty herself.

Tearing her eyes from the dancer for good – as she told herself – she got her attention. “Say, Tamao…”

Someone stepped between them and dragged Tamao away. Jeanne tried to protest, but another boy seized his own chance and tugged her towards him. He was a bit taller and less careful than the first; Jeanne did not remember his name.

She hadn’t liked the way he tugged at her, but she held out for a moment.

“I didn’t know you could dance like that,” he yelled over the singer’s voice. “You’re cute with your hair down!”

Hair down? Jeanne raised a hand towards the back of her head. Indeed, her braid had come undone, replaced by a thick river of tousled locks. She couldn’t feel her tie anywhere and, though she tried to look around on the ground, there were too many feet and not enough room.

She danced a bit more still, but it did not feel the same. The tide had gone back out. Perhaps it was because she was sober and her classmates, by and large, were not anymore; perhaps it was because she’d been torn from Tamao and it was her she wanted to dance with. The singer had taken a break; he had the right idea. Looking above the sea of dancers, she found Tamao by her hair.

Excusing herself from the rude boy she made her way over and found her with the singer. They weren’t dancing together, exactly; Tamao seemed to be dancing alone, dazed, or perhaps focused on some faraway point inside of herself. The singer, beer in hand, watched her from the wall. Yet it felt like they were connected; no one else tried to get to her, or to him.

Jeanne didn’t like it. Pushing through, she brushed against her friend’s shoulder.

“Tamao?”

The girl blinked and smiled at her, back on planet Earth. “Jeanne.”

“I am thirsty,” Jeanne said after a beat. “What about you?”

“Maybe a bit.”

They went back to the table they’d left their glasses on. They were waiting for them, still half-full. It was a relief: the dance had left them hot and sweaty.

“To think tomorrow we’ll all be debating the merits of Shakespeare and Queneau,” Jeanne smiled.

“Sorry?”

“I was saying…”

“What would the world become if the children of the stage forgot how to have fun?”

That wasn’t Tamao’s voice. Jeanne whirled around, but they were alone. “What?”

“I’m sorry?”

“There was a voice…”

She turned back to Tamao, her brows furrowed in thought. “You didn’t hear anything?”

“No… I don’t think so. What did it sound like?”

“I…”

It was this moment that a girl nearby backed into Tamao, sending her right into Jeanne. Beer and strawberry lemonade spilled all over them and the floor.

“Oh, no!” Tamao paled. “I’ll, I’ll take care of it!”

Before Jeanne could say anything she drew a tissue and knelt to clean Jeanne’s shoes.

“Tamao, it’s not…”

“Miss, please. I’ll take care of that.”

One of the waiters from the bar had appeared out of thin air with a mop. He thanked Tamao, but outright refused to let her help, which Jeanne silently thanked him for. It was just uncomfortable how ready Tamao was to debase herself. The tissue was in tatters, even now that she was only cleaning her own shoes. Jeanne tried to offer her own handkerchief, but Tamao refused, and her discomfort grew. She wanted out of here. “Let’s go back.”

“Do you want another drink?”

“No, I mean home,” Jeanne explained, voice tight. “I have beer at home. And I’d like some fresh air, what about you?”

Tamao smiled shyly. She saw through the façade, and Jeanne knew it.

“Yes, let’s go.”

They gathered their coats, bags, and bearings, and then they left.


	2. Just as I can be so cruel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jeanne said Sarah’s words and the ceiling lamp exploded.

Jeanne’s apartment / 19:41

“It fits you,” Tamao said, as Jeanne fiddled with her keys. “Your hair, down like this.”

“You think?” The lock resisted. Her hair was definitely not helping, falling in front of her eyes, slipped into her mouth, refused any attempt to push it out of the way. “It gets tangled, it’s not the most comfortable.”

“But you look beautiful.”

Down the street, guitars were still strumming along the rhythm of the night. Summer nights in Paris were always nice. Jeanne still felt the energy from the dance, almost wanted to go back. Yet the thought of a meal shared with Tamao was equally tempting, and it was to that temptation she chose to succumb.

Her infamous father rented for her a place close to the university, where he could easily visit her on the regular. So on the regular, so on the dot, to the point where it was not difficult to know when he would or would not be there. Thus, where it was not difficult to know when they could, or could not, do things he did not approve of.

Though his overbearance annoyed her, Jeanne generally followed his rules. It was meeting Tamao, really, that set things into motion. None of her transgressions felt too sinful; just little incursions on the wild side. She wasn’t supposed to have boys over, and she didn’t: Tamao was not a boy. Marco would have screamed his head off if he’d seen her beer in hand, but it wasn’t hers and she didn’t drink it: it was Tamao’s, bought with Tamao’s money, and Tamao was the one to drink it. She was old enough but didn’t have a fridge to keep a pack in. So it was really just being a good hostess to keep some for when she was over. And, really, it was nothing big, was it?

They made their way into the main room, where living room and kitchen met amicably. Jeanne’s old foil was propped on the wall, surrounded by medical cheat sheets and revision packets.

“Do we have anything to eat?”

“I prepared sandwiches for tonight, if that’s alright with you,” Jeanne said, like sandwiches could somehow constitute a meal. For her it was, since any more elaborate attempt usually ended in disaster.

“Perfect,” Tamao smiled.

Jeanne took them out of the fridge while Tamao cleared the table. Jeanne had left her copy of _Labyrinth_ there, with her notebooks and some pens, before they left for the party. “Do you already know what scene you want to use?”

Jeanne turned from her spot, first confused and then giddy. “Oh, yes! I do! I was thinking about the very beginning, actually, when the girl, Sarah, gives her brother Toby to the Goblin King, not knowing he would really come, and then he does. It’s the… The magic I really find neat in this scene. Before that everything was normal. The parents were still there, the crow was only a crow. After that, everything changes, and… What?”

Tamao was laughing from her spot on the couch.

“What is it?”

“No, no,” she tried to stop, took a deep breath, and then laughed again. “It’s just… You’ve already thought your presentation all the way through, haven’t you?”

Jeanne frowned. She, admittedly, had. “What of it?”

Tamao leaned over and squeezed her hand.

“It’s really – it’s very cute. It shows how much you’re passionate and that’s great.”

Jeanne wasn’t convinced.

“Sounds like you’re making fun of me.”

“I’m not. I promise. I promise!”

Feeling miffed, Jeanne decided to push back. The smile on Tamao’s face told her she could.

“You don’t believe me,” she accused with a smile.

“Of course I do.”

Jeanne handed her the beer and took the book. “Listen up, you ruffian. I’ll show you the magic myself – the first time Sarah meets Jareth, the Goblin King.” She riffled through the pages for her excerpt, like Tamao wasn’t giggling mad. Perhaps it was the drink that put this shin in her eye, even though she’d only had one drink.

“Ahah, found it!” Jeanne scanned it, then stood straight and made a face.

“What do you want,” she asked Tamao, speaking loud and angry. “A story? Okay. It starts with Once upon a time, like all the good stories. Once upon a time, a very beautiful girl lived with her horrible step-mom. This horrible step-mom made her watch her baby brother, that’s you,” and Jeanne broke character to wink. She had never quite learned how to, so she just blinked at Tamao, but Tamao giggled all the same. “The baby was rotten to the core. He always got everything he wanted. The poor dear! And the young girl was his slave.”

Tamao leaned a bit forward. She had stopped giggling; she was now taken by the story.

“But what nobody knew,” and as she said the words Jeanne felt the pull of the familiar story herself, remembered reading the book under the covers with a flashlight, remembered trying so hard to remember the lines, “was that the Goblin King had fallen in love with the girl, and given her certain powers.”

Tamao tilted her head curiously.

“One night, when the baby had been too awful with her, she decided to call the goblins for aid.”

Then she moved to the side, signifying she had switched characters. She also crouched and made a funny, twisted face. “Listen, listen!” She’d tweaked her voice, too, made it squeaky, fit for a puppet.

Jumping back into the girl’s position, she mimicked goblin speech, but wrongly, just off enough for it to show: “You need to use your right words. We, the goblins, are listening! And we will go with the babe to the Goblin City. Your dilemma will be solved.”

She extended a twisted, creepy hand towards Tamao, who made the appropriate scared noise. She still had her beer in hand, but it had been forgotten entirely.

“But what she also knew,” Jeanne recited, “was that if the Goblin King took the baby, he would lock him up for life, and turn him into a hideous and disgusting goblin. So, the young girl sighed and held her head down and worked, until that very night.”

She paused for effect. “After a hard day of work, scolded by her step-mother, she simply could not bear it anymore.”

Then she stopped, as if listening. Tamao supposed this would be the baby crying. Jeanne _was_ rather good at playing the petty teen.

“Oh, come on,” Jeanne raged, “stop crying! Please! And there,” she stepped out of her girl’s voice, “she takes the baby in her arms, like this,” and she wrapped an arm around Tamao. “Calm down, please, calm down! Please, please, stop it! Otherwise I’ll say it, I’ll say the words.” A second. “Of course I won’t say them.” Another pause, and she scowled, looking even more exasperated. “I wish, I wish…”

She put the book in between them, sitting beside Tamao on the couch, and tapped the goblin words to show she wanted her to read them. Enthused as she was, Tamao jumped right in.

“Be patient, friends,” she giggled. “I’m sure she will say her right words!”

“I’m tired of you, you hear? Goblins, wherever you are, please come, right now, and make sure I never have to deal with this baby again!”

“Aw, come on, that’s not it,” Tamao cried in a squeakier voice. It was fun to hand Jeanne he cues. “She really needs a hand. Or a claw. Do we have to spell it? She can’t hear. All you need to do is say I wish.”

“Oh, Toby, please… I really would like to know what to say to get the goblins to come and take you away.

“I wish the goblins would come,” but Tamao couldn’t hold it, the laughter erupted out of her. “Sorry.” Jeanne waited patiently until Tamao could continue, “and, I’m sorry, take you. Not that hard, is it?”

Jeanne watched her laugh. Did she have something on her nose? She wasn’t sure it was natural for her to be so overjoyed.

“I wish…” Her voice came out soft, and not so impatient. She blinked out of the lull. “I wish…”

Tamao leaned in, goading her.

“Come on, say it, say it, will you say it? Oh, shut up!”

“So then,” and Jeanne let go of Tamao, rising with the book in hand, “she puts the baby back in the crib, and she steps away,” and she did, “and then she looks back and smiles. It is a cold smile. And then,” her voice dropped to a whisper, “she said: ‘I wish the Goblin King would come and take you away right now’!”

Jeanne said Sarah’s words and the ceiling lamp exploded.

Instinctively she dove behind the kitchen counter and muffled a scream. She didn’t dare move. What if there was glass on her? What if there was glass on Tamao? Very slowly, she moved a hand, looked at it to see if there were any slivers of glass on it, and touched her face.

Nothing.

She didn’t feel anything on her blazer, either. Still terrified that she might be seconds away from glass tearing into her skin, she called in the dark: “Tamao? Everything alright?”

No answer.

Why didn’t she answer? Was she unconscious? Did the glass cut into her? She hadn’t heard her scream. She hadn’t heard anything. If Tamao was unconscious – she needed help. She needed her help.

Jeanne had to move. Silencing her fears, she sat up and peered at the room.

Without the lamp it was dark. The only light came from the microwave above her head, which lit up nothing beyond its immediate proximity, and the street lights outside. The ground must be covered in glass shards. It was a sheer miracle she hadn’t been hit. But Tamao?

Tamao was nowhere to be seen.

Jeanne frowned. Had she found shelter behind the couch? On the balcony? But why wasn’t she saying anything?

“Tamao? Everything okay? If you can’t talk, just make some noise, I’ll find you.”

Nothing.

Her heart rose in her throat. Jeanne rose to her feet and carefully stepped over the switches to light up the kitchen area. She couldn’t keep the dark thoughts seeping into her head. Was Tamao unconscious? Maybe she dove like Jeanne did and hit her head. Maybe glass had cut into her throat. Maybe maybe maybe.

If any of these were right every second counted. The moment the light was on she scanned the room again. Still nothing that could be the shape of Tamao. No glass, either. This was… this was becoming very strange. Moments before they’d heard guitars down the street, cars outside. Now, nothing. She couldn’t even hear the hum of the fridge. Her phone was on the kitchen counter, and so she took it, found the lamp, turned it on.

When she held it to the ceiling, the lamp was… it was fine. It didn’t look like it’d exploded. Maybe only the bulb broke? That would explain the darkness, and the lack of glass.

That didn’t explain Tamao.

“Tamao?”

A soft breeze played in her hear. The balcony. She must have escaped to the balcony. Perhaps this was a joke. So far it was working: Jeanne’s heart was beating like wings, and she couldn’t hear anything over her breathing.

It was very uneasy that Jeanne walked over to the door. Her stomach was filled with lead, like stones weighing her down, and it made her see spots but she held her breath when she stepped out.

There was someone there.

“That really wasn’t funny, Tamao,” she said, trying to sound appropriately miffed.

“I do not agree. I find this situation positively hilarious,” replied a voice that clearly, _clearly_ wasn’t her friend.

The person standing there was nothing like her, either. Now that she saw him clearly, she discovered a young man, tall, taller than her though that didn’t mean much. His clothes were ancient without seeming old. An imposing ruffle of fabric stood straight as knives below his neck, and behind what looked like darkened leathers there was a long cape. It could have come straight from the drama closets. Yet, strangely enough, they matched.

For a moment there was silence. Her brain simply refused to compute who this could be and what they were doing there, leaning back with his elbows on her balcony like he owned the place.

Then her eyes slid to the mint pot. Tamao had given it to her when she still had hopes Jeanne could grow anything without killing it; she was the one who saved it times and times again. Holding the heavy pot untied her tongue. “Who are you?”

She couldn’t lift it above her head for very long, but for now it just made her feel safe. It would do to threaten, for now, no need to hurt.

The stranger raised a haughty brow. “What do you mean? You called me here. You said the words. Surely you remember.”

The words? None of what he said made any sense. He couldn’t _be_ here, on this balcony on the second floor behind two locks and a concierge.

“This is a prank,” she stated. “You know Tamao.” He looked Japanese, too. Could it be that Yoh…? But she had always said Yoh was _kind_ and there was nothing kind about the smirk stretching on his face.

“Thank you for the name. Don’t be childish, girl. You know what I mean.”

In one hand he was playing with a trio of crystal balls that drew her eyes instantly. There was something intensely familiar about them. Something soothing, too, but her brain refused to be soothed.

“I don’t understand,” and it came as a distressed command to explain. She demanded to understand.

“There’s nothing to understand. You could have wished anyone away, and she is the one you chose.” His hand rose until the crystals were at eye level, and she could see Tamao in them. Tamao wreathed in flames. Tamao sleeping in a bed that would have fit right into the Versailles rooms they’d visited together. “You asked the goblins to free you of the burden, and so we did.”

The _Labyrinth_ flashed behind her eyes and she shook her head. It was a story, nothing more! She never – she hadn’t meant….

“But let it never be said I am not generous,” he told her then, shushing her protests right there in her throat. “It is so rare to be gifted an adult of your kind. There are so many things I’ll burn to do with her. So, I will offer you your dreams.”

She didn’t understand what he meant and didn’t care. Her dreams? She wasn’t Sarah. She didn’t dream of ballrooms and grand stages. She was going into medicine and Tamao needed to go back to Japan where she was needed.

“Don’t you dare touch her,” she hissed. “Give her back.” She glanced beyond the balcony, worried, refused to believe it. She couldn’t check, anyways; he was between her and the railing “She can’t have jumped. How did you get her out of my apartment?”

_Please_ , she prayed silently, _please let her be safe. Let this be a stupid prank_.

His smile faded. “Don’t be ridiculous. You know where she is.”

“In the Labyrinth.” Jeanne had wanted to say it like a question, an incredulous and angry question. Instead she felt like the truth had come naked and sharp from her own lips. “But that’s impossible! She can’t be! I didn’t mean to call you or give her away, I…”

“Ah-ah, but you said the words, didn’t you? It is far too late to complain now. Instead you get your dreams. A rather fair trade.”

She tried to look, really she tried, but she still got flashes from the crystals. A large operation theater. Some conference room with Marco beside her.

“No!”

All the patience he still displayed vanished from his face.

“No? No, no, no, tralala? Don’t you know who I am? Who do you think you are?”

He threw the cystals at her face, and she screamed, letting go of the mint to protect her face. It burst on the ground and she felt hundreds of tiny legs on her arms.

When she looked she screamed again. It was spiders. Dozens and dozens of spiders, black all over except for a smudge of red and gold on their backs, climbing up on her sleeves towards her neck. She rubbed her arms to shake them off, nails raking against her own flesh through the fabric, and where she flung them on the ground they burst into flowers with long red petals. Spider lilies.

“What was that?”

“My work here is done,” he said coldly. “It was my pleasure. Have fun in your sterile world.”

“Wait!”

He’d half-turned to apparently _hop over her balcony_ ; he stilled. Jeanne, still scratching quite frantically at herself to make sure the spiders were gone, took a step towards him. She didn’t try to hide the panic bubbling through her veins.

“I didn’t mean to make a wish,” she insisted. “Surely there is a way to get her back.”

“There isn’t.”

“I challenge you,” she continued. “Like in the book, alright? She is in your castle and I will get her back.”

His eyes narrowed, and because she was staring at his face Jeanne saw it. Something off. Something that had her want to immediately look away. His eyes were dark, almost pitch black, but… there was fire there. A golden flame that threatened to spill out if she said the wrong thing.

She swallowed.

“She is indeed in my Castle, beyond the Goblin City, at the heart of the Labyrinth. But you don’t want to join her, sweetheart. It isn’t a place for people like you. You would break your neck on the first flight of stairs.” He showed her teeth, sharpened into fangs. “Why don’t you go back and call your father? He would have quite the fright if you disappeared.”

She sucked in a breath. How did he know about Marco?

“Yes, he would. But I still challenge you. Give me Tamao back.”

He let out what felt like a sigh and stepped over to her, great big strides that didn’t leave her any time to evade. Grabbing hold of her wrist he made for the door to her apartment, and she almost resisted, but already she was over the threshold and stepping on a hill.

Below them was the Labyrinth. Too big to be caught in one glance, it spread across the horizon in a large, messy scratch. Fog and distance blurred out the details; it took her a moment to locate the castle, standing proud on the next hill, higher than them, sharp and dark. Tamao was there. And it was miles away. So many miles.

“You have thirteen hours to face my trials and find your friend,” the Goblin King said dryly. “If in thirteen hours you haven’t found her, she will remain here forever.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was part of the first chapter at first, but it got very long. Plus that way Hao gets a chapter to himself! Spooky times ahead!


	3. Live without your sunlight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Then you’ll just never get out again. You don’t go into the Labyrinth and back without consequences.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for creepy not-fully-human creatures and some cameos.

Labyrinth outskirts / First Hour

The sun was setting over the labyrinth. It washed everything in warm, orange light, just a tad sickly. Jeanne struggled to imagine what colors would bathe the world under a more natural light.

Not that it mattered. For now, all she cared about was finding an entrance.

Stepping over the balcony had landed her on top of a hill. She still had her shoes when Tamao was taken, so she stepped boldly over the twigs and pebbles, leaving the Goblin King behind her. His burning gaze followed her down, and he’d told her she could still turn back. She wouldn’t, mustn’t pay attention. He would only hinder her, and beyond the gentlemanly surface she sensed danger and cruelty.

Instead there were the trials, and she would focus on them. The walls grew before her, and now stood maybe twenty feet high. Maybe more.

But there was no door.

Quite on the nose, for a labyrinth.

Swallowing the panic, she picked a side, and pointedly did not look at the King. Then she walked, running her hand across the rugged stone. Moss grew in between the slabs, limiting the space there. It was all terribly solid, no openings, no weaknesses. For several minutes she walked, looking for the great door that must exist, in vain. The fortress walls and the dull light felt lonely but intriguing; a challenge she would have been excited to undertake were it not for the fact that Tamao depended on her winning it.

She noticed there was a lot of trash on the ground as she walked. Very human trash, too: half-torn plastic bags, cardboard boxes, glass shards. It all felt like a very bad joke. A bad _trip_ , almost, something that could almost have been orchestrated by the drama program. The man in her room had felt almost familiar.

But Tamao would have never gone along with that. Tamao wasn’t like that. And even if this – even if this was a prank, somewhere somehow anyhow, Tamao was within these walls, and she would get to her.

And for that she needed to get _in_. but how? When she didn’t even know where she was compared to the door? The border wall seemed to extend for miles upon miles. Maybe hundreds of them. Was there even a door?

Maybe that was looking wrong at the problem. Maybe she shouldn’t look for a way in and _make_ one.

Stopping, Jeanne faced the wall. It was weathered enough to offer a few holds that she could see, but she didn’t know much about boulder climbing. It was Tamao’s thing. And she didn’t have anything like appropriate clothing. Still, she’d seen Tamao free climb outside, so she had some idea of how to move. She went at it, stabbing her foot high in a hole between two slabs, finding a snug perch for her fingers, and pushed herself upwards.

It couldn’t be very hard. Tamao always moved so quickly and gracefully when she did it. When Jeanne heaved her own body up it suddenly felt heavier than it had ever been, and she had to throw her free foot out to keep her balance.

Once she had stabilized, she found a hold for her free food, searched for one for her hand, found a very small crack. She leaned her hand flat on the stone, put weight on it. Her fingers ripped, tearing dust and small pebbles right in her eye. It was enough to throw her off balance and she let go, falling back with a shriek.

She landed straight on her back and stayed there a moment. Her hands burned; when she looked, the right one was bleeding. Jeanne swallowed a disgusted whimper. Everything was so dirty here! She was sure to get an infection if she didn’t clean it. But she had no water to clean it _with_.

With a grimace she went through her pockets and found a handkerchief. She dabbed at the wound, then did her best to tie it around her hand. It tingled something fierce.

Then she felt a pang of guilt about taking the time. She was still outside and she was now wounded. Tamao only had thirteen hours. She couldn’t afford something as stupid as this!

With a frustrated sigh she stood back up. Just as she considered her options she heard cawing.

Birds? She hadn’t seen any animals so far. Was it…?

Her thoughts stopped dead when she saw it.

It was nestled on a twisted tree, too far from the wall to be useful. She thought ‘it’ when she saw it, because it was a bird, but it wasn’t. In fact, it was more man than bird. He had the body of one, crouching on a branch in what felt like a terrible imbalance.

His hands and feet, though. These were twisted into terrible, fragile talons. The face was human at the top and avian at the bottom, nose and mouth replaced by a great beak, too big for his face, black like a raven’s. It had black hair that hung long and dirty around his shoulders. On his back were great wings, but they didn’t look natural.

She took a few steps towards the thing, too confused to be afraid, and then she understood what was wrong. The wings, they were made with what looked like paper. Newspaper paper, even, covered in big headlines and weird lines. This… this thing had never flown.

What was the point of this thing? A grotesque display? Who would do this to themselves? He seemed sickly, stunted. Could he even leave his branch?

“Who are you,” she asked, too softly to be heard. “Are you from here? From the labyrinth?” She tried to force herself to speak louder. “I must get in, please. Can you open the door for me?”

The bird-man didn’t answer. Instead, it opened its terrible beak in a pitiful shriek. Then it unfurled like a great, terrible omen, its paper wing spreading around him. It seemed right about to take flight, and Jeanne believed it could, for one second.

Then it fell.

Jeanne didn’t muffle her scream. Just like she thought its wings were useless. He _let himself fall_ , like a stone, and now lied on the floor face-first. Nothing in him was natural. Someone had bewitched this thing, had taken it from bird or human and made it both.

“Who did this to you,” she whispered, taking another few steps towards the creature. Hao? Was it one of his…. One of his wished away? Was _this_ Tamao’s fate if she failed? She couldn’t help the grand wave of pity that overwhelmed her. It didn’t seem hostile. Its eyes were on her, but it didn’t try to move.

Carefully, carefully, Jeanne stepped closer.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” she told the beast. It was taller than her, but it seemed so scared she thought she should warn him. “Can you not speak at all? What happened to you?”

All she got for an answer was a pleading caw.

“This is a nightmare,” she whispered.

“Exactly! That’s why nobody should go in there,” someone said behind her, and she jumped. Whirling around, she took a couple of steps back, instantly scared and then not.

In front of her was some… some sort of dwarf. It barely came to her knees, human-shaped but not human, clearly not, all milk-white. Its face was flat and smooth, with animal fangs and human eyes. Behind its face she saw four long… ears? Bangs? Solid flaps of skin, gathered like braids. It looked… It looked like a demon, really.

On its torso it – or someone else, perhaps an owner, perhaps the King – had tied a kitchen towel, purple, with a big Z emblazoned on it. Or perhaps a two?

“What are you?”

It chuckled. “Oh, what an impolite one we have here. Hey, bird!”

That’s when Jeanne noticed the stone in its hand. Before she could react, the demon threw it at the bird-man. It fled with a cry, its beak hanging broken. Jeanne shrieked.

“Are you mad? Get away from him!”

She stood in between the two monsters, feeling the need to protect the pitiful from the cruel.

“You’re the one who’s got to go,” he said, his voice malicious. “I’m helping.”

“You’re…” She glanced back at the bird. It had moved back, a little, but it still remained close. Was it the key she needed? “Would he help me in?”

“Don’t pretend,” the demon chuckled. “It’s not an ‘he’ to you, is it?”

Jeanne flushed. “But would he?”

“Course not. Why would you want to get locked in there?”

“I must,” Jeanne said through gritted teeth. “It’s important.”

The demon shrugged its shoulders, clearly unconvinced. “Then you’ll just never get out again. You don’t go into the Labyrinth and back without consequences.”

“I don’t care about consequences. I will get out with Tamao. That’s all that matters.” But her voice shook.

“So confident for a puny human! Really funny,” and the thing laughed, showing off large fangs. “I like it. OK, I’ll help you in. Then it’ll be really funny.”

Crouching, it gathered what she’d thought was a long sheet of cardboard and pushed it against the wall.

“What are you…?”

“By the King, chill out. A bit of patience wouldn’t hurt you, chit.”

And indeed, the cardboard… it was changing. The moment it touched the wall, it solidified, taking the aspect of a large wooden door, with big heavy hinges of burnished iron. Mouth agape, Jeanne stepped up to it, touched what she could have sworn was cardboard a moment ago. But it looked and felt like wood, and try as she might to find the place where the cardboard was laid on the wall, she found nothing. Just thick hinges, solidly anchored into the wall.

“Here’s ya door. Gonna say thank you?”

Somehow it was taunting. Jeanne was too dumbfounded to, and something told her it would be the wrong thing to say. Instead she ran her hand to the middle of the door and tried to push it open. “It’s locked,” she said, as haughtily as she could.

“Course it is. If you want it open, ya gotta have the key.”

“And where’s that key?” She could feel her patience thin out dangerously.

But the monster wasn’t intimidated. Instead its smile widened, yellow and toothy. “In that bird’s throat.”

It felt like a stab through her stomach. “What…?”

Loud cawing came from behind them, and Jeanne turned to see that the “bird” had indeed moved closer. Its beak shone black. It must have been at least as large as her entire face. Even broken, it looked like a tool for torturers. And was that dull stain blood…?

But the bird looked so defeated. It looked sad, not cruel.

“You can still leave,” the demon besides her said. “I can chase it. There’s stones everywhere. Shame to become like that, ain’t it?”

Swallowing she ignored it and crept closer to the bird. Could it even close its beak? It let out a whiny complaint, and she raised her arm. Part of her wanted to soothe it with a caress; the other was entirely too grossed out. Instead she met its gaze and held it as she pushed her hand past its sharp, bloody opening. Beyond that was pure darkness.

Her whole arm tingled in expectation of pain, but she refused to show any of it. If the creature saw it… its eyes, so human they were brown, were fixated on her. It was waiting and Jeanne refused to give it any cue that might launch it into attack. Slowly she reached further and further in. her hand brushed against warm and moist patches of tissue, and then something cold. Before she could think twice she closed her fingers around it.

That was when the bird moved.

Letting out a small cry, she lunged backwards. Her under arm scraped painfully against the jagged edges of the beak, and in spite of her pride she knew she whined at least a little as she pressed her hand to her chest. The cold thing she had taken from it was a large iron key, covered in slobber and dried blood. The key. She had it.

“You did it,” said a voice above her, and it wasn’t the demon’s. When she looked up, she saw the bird. It didn’t seem to have changed at all: still paper wings, still a broken beak. And yet, it was from him that this deep, gravelly voice rose. “You broke the spell.”

He looked haughty, like he was dismissing her. All of the pity she had felt for him vanished, not because he didn’t seem worthy of it, but because his cold stare refused to be pitied.

Still, she had to know. “I am glad that I helped. Who did this to you?”

His wings shook, and for a moment he was sad again. “My son,” he said softly. His voice struggled, raspy and harsh, but definitely human. “My son did this. Banished me from the Labyrinth and gave me this form.

Though he used words he still sounded a little like a bird. She wished she could comfort him, but she didn’t know what to say.

“Your son?”

“Yes. The heart of the Labyrinth. The Goblin King. Hao.”

She tilted her head. “Hao? Is that his name?”

That was the wrong thing to say. His wings flapped nervously behind him, ‘feathers’ falling in patches. “I shouldn’t have said. He will know. Do not use it.”

“I won’t tell,” Jeanne promised, as the reams of paper threatened to blind her entirely. She was still on the ground, and couldn’t get herself upright. “It’s fine, you’ll be fine!”

But there was no reply. A feather poked her in the eye as she tried to wave them away and she had to press her hands to her face. She only looked again when the paper sounds were gone.

The two monsters were nowhere to be seen.

Gathering her frayed wits she rose to her feet. At least she still had the key. But where could they have gone? Apart from the still-locked door, there was nothing but vast empty stretches of land. Nowhere to go. Even the tree was too gnarly and thin to hide them.

Ignoring the dread in her stomach, Jeanne decided to forget about them both for now. She knew the thought of the bird who was the King’s father and yet not would come back to her, but she could not afford to waste the time now. She had to find Tamao, and now she had a way in.

The key was far from clean. There were bits of something that felt like pink velvet. She didn’t really think it was pink velvet. She flicked some away with a finger, and the sensation made her skin crawl, but she went at it resolutely. She didn’t want the key to get stuck in the door and her out of the labyrinth.

Exhaling slowly, she placed the key in the door and turned. It resisted a little, and though she was afraid of damaging the mechanism at first, she had to put her whole weight on it.

Then something clicked and Jeanne almost fell right back down into what seemed to be a long corridor between high walls, stretching into infinity.

It looked exactly as desolate and abandoned as the wastes outside.

Still keeping her lungs empty, Jeanne stepped into the labyrinth.

Labyrinth First Ring / Second Hour

It had to be a first defense system. That’s what she thought of this maze of hallways, with no apparent exit. It didn’t make any sense for this place to be inhabited. Perhaps it ran around the whole labyrinth and she was stuck in the exact same position as before.

At least she knew about how it worked.

She started towards her left. It all felt… dank. When she brushed against the stone walls, the stone was humid, and dirty. Staring at the ground, she looked for the next bit of cardboard, the next stone that could become a door. There was no going about this rationally. She wouldn’t find a lock, let alone a door. But she could perhaps still force her way in, even without her very odd one-time allies.

She just had to follow the… odd rules of this strange world around her.

Jeanne continued down, trying to gather the determination she’d somehow lost. She was still going in the direction she’d taken outside, which meant she made progress. Laterally, maybe, but progress still. Hopefully.

This time, however, there was no cardboard door, no bloody key. The wall simply vanished under her fingers at some point. She could still _see_ it; it looked as solid as every wall around it. But her fingers on it felt nothing. Just empty air. She moved them back, found the edge of the real wall, felt the moss and humid stonework.

There was a way here. Hidden, but here.

There! She’d done it! She found the hidden answer!

Jeanne confidently walked through the wall. There was no resistance, but her eyes glazed over, and for a second she couldn’t see anything. Was she blind? She forced herself not to panic, to keep walking, but it became difficult. Something soft, almost hairy, brushed against her arms, and then this – what was this, was that a creature? Or the air itself? Whatever it was it was gaining weight. Like it wasn’t air, but fabric, a mess of threads wrapped around her arms and her waist. Taking steps was now an effort, and soon she could barely move.

There was nothing but white before her eyes. This sound… was it chittering?

Panicking, Jeanne fought the air. She pushed through the air as best as she could, hoping to loosen the weight, the threads, if she couldn’t snap them. Her feet forced the web, fought to move forward, forward, forward.

The chittering… was coming… closer. It was hard to hear over the noise of her heart hammering in her chest. She didn’t know what it was, and really didn’t want to stick around and see. Her jacket tore at her wrists and her throat as she pushed herself further. She tried to grab at it, keep it from choking her, but even that movement was too much. The fabric around her demanded she be smaller, finer, straighter.

Yelling Jeanne threw herself forward and finally found ground before her feet. The cloud of white lifted from her eyes and she was in a new section.

Behind her, a wall, apparently of stone.

Around her, the labyrinth.

This wasn’t an outer wall. It was thin, and she could actually walk around it; there were two narrow alleyways, running criss-cross through a maze of walls. Right. A real labyrinth.

She carefully tested the wall she had entered through, leaning on it. It held. It was stone and she simply couldn’t step through.

Why was she even trying to understand the logic of this place?

With a sigh, she let herself slide down to the ground and took a deep breath. Her throat hurt something fierce. Without paying too much attention she ran her hand across her neck, hoping to manage it somewhat, but her hands never met the fabric of her turtleneck.

Jeanne looked down silently. Gone was her blouse, gone was her sensible long skirt, in sensible black and white. Instead she was clad in gold, and cream somehow ever-so-slightly _wrong_. Her clothes had been old-fashioned, yes, but this was downright medieval. Something she identified as a doublet, blooming breeches that ballooned to the sides, high boots that didn’t quite meet the breeches, and a cape that rubbed exactly where her throat had hurt. There was a belt, too, with an empty scabbard on the side.

This was… this was a storybook prince’s costume. What? “What?”

“Like it?”

Jeanne jumped and looked for the source of the voice. She found nothing. She was completely alone.

“Where are you,” she fumed quietly. “Show yourself!”

There was a laugh, but no more.

“Speak.”

“You don’t like it? Playing the heroine?”

Hao. This was the Goblin King’s voice, no doubt. Somehow the idea of him doing this, of… imagining? An outfit for her? Made rage surge through her blood. She wanted to see him, and grab him, and force him to put things back where they belonged.

“Give me my things back,” she seethed, slowly standing. “Stop distracting me or give me Tamao back.”

“You are much better like this,” he answered in the wind. “And you know what you must do to get back what you so freely offered. Distractions notwithstanding.”

Instead of letting herself be needled back into the talk, Jeanne focused on the voice, tried to follow it to its origin. He couldn’t be far. She just had to turn the right corner. “Show yourself. Be brave enough to insult me to my face, at least.”

Nothing. Nothing but laugh in the wind. _Why would I ever insult you, precious?_ But it wasn’t his voice, not in the real world. She’d just… she just imagined him saying that.

“I’ll beat you. I will find Tamao and beat you,” she yelled, trying to etch the words in reality. He was nowhere she could see, and now she couldn’t even hear him anymore. She doubted he was even still there. Still, it made her feel uneasy – the thought that he was watching her somehow. Dissecting her.

So, this was what the Labyrinth was. Invisible eyes all around her. A hand manipulating her senses.

Walking around aimlessly was bound to get her lost. Swallowing her anger, Jeanne forced herself to stop near a wall and took a few deep breaths. None of this made sense. None of this could be real. There! She had believed in everything she thought she saw, but here the truth was, naked and undeniable: none of this was real. A dream. A nightmare. A… A bad trip after the party, maybe? They had left their glasses unattended. Why had they done that? It was so stupid! Marco had warned her enough times about it! And the heat on the dance floor, the energy that flowed through her…

None of this was real. In which case, she was better off not moving. Staying in one place and waiting until it died down. Maybe she could call someone?

Marco would be furious. But he would also be _not high_ , and he would know what to do. Jeanne ignored the incoming lightning and went to fish her phone in her pocket. She would call Marco, and he would know what to do.

But this costume didn’t have pockets. The fabric was old, velvety, shimmering, and all made in one bolt. She couldn’t even find seams.

She also remembered dropping her phone on the couch when she’d heard who she thought was Tamao on the balcony.

She was stuck here.

And just then she noticed something leaning against the very same wall.

Her stomach twisted at the sight of bones. It was a skeleton, complete enough to have kept a human pose, though the bones were old and broken, some missing altogether. The clothes were in tatters. Gold and cream tatters.

Jeanne jerked away with a shriek. Moss grew in the orbits and formed revolting pupils that followed her. When she moved the skull slid slightly as if to keep looking, and Jeanne froze, trying to determine if this thing was still alive.

It couldn’t. There was nothing _alive_ about bones. There was no heart and no brain and no stem. It _couldn’t_ move. It would crumble if it tried. And still it felt like a terrible threat, and she silently stepped back until she hit another wall.

It did not move again.

Of course it did not. It was dead. There was no sign of how she had died, but Jeanne wore incredibly similar clothes, and had been leaning on the exact same wall. Was she… was she…?

A grinding noise rose from deep behind her. She didn’t look back; she took off running.

She tried to keep her head about herself, and not draw too much attention by sprinting loudly and losing her breath. Instead she jogged, fast but silent and tried to think of something, of _anything_ that could help her navigate this place.

The obvious answer was Lyserg. She knew he’d given her mazes to solve before, and he’d told her a clue if she was stuck. _Keep your left hand on the wall and don’t let go_ , he’d said. _You may take some time but you will get out again_.

She couldn’t trust the walls and didn’t want to touch them, but she kept to her left. It would be a twisting and turning path, but she would end up somewhere, and the noise behind her had faded enough that she thought she had some time.

She kept to her pace for a while more and then slowed down to a walk. The sky was still the exact same dull orange, she realized as she took the first path to her left. The walls were too high to show where the Castle was. All she could see was this sliver of sky. Dusky orange sky.

Time had to have passed, though. She had walked some time before she even entered the thing. How many hours in the real world before someone found out they were missing? It was barely night when they got home. It wouldn’t be until the morning. Lyserg would see they weren’t at the program, and he would tell Marco, but how long would that take? He was _trying_ not to be obnoxious about it. At least at lunch he would notice. But would he even tell Marco? He’d helped her break the rules. Maybe he wouldn’t tell. Then what?

And if Marco knew, then what? He would leave his prestigious hospital to open up her apartment, and then he would know she was gone. The bags left in the open, the broken pot – would he think they were taken? She didn’t have her phone or her papers. Tamao didn’t, either, or at least she didn’t think so.

He would find the beer. The thought filled her with dread, though she knew it was stupid. It didn’t actually matter. She still felt guilty. And he would find the book…

But Marco Maxwell, PhD, would never believe in a goblin kidnapping. He was a well-known surgeon, because he was good at his job and good at yelling. Seeing him once was enough for everyone to know they should beware. He was the one who taught her to live by the ruler and expect nothing less. What he didn’t understand he didn’t like and what he didn’t like he yelled away. He had nothing even remotely close to imagination, and no taste for fantasy. Nothing on earth would let him entertain the thought that she was taken by the main character of a child’s storybook.

Though… He had thrown the book away once, already. Did he… know? Have any inkling? Then he could… He could what? What could he do to help? She only had thirteen hours.

Her tutor could not help her. Better stop holding on to him.

It seemed to her that she walked for a very long time in the stone hallways. The air was chilly, but she couldn’t tell if it was actually getting colder or if her clothes just weren’t enough to keep her warm. Well, the cape was. Her face and hands were the ones starting to go numb.

She followed Lyserg’s advice well enough, but she didn’t see anything new. Just stone, stone, stone.

A new passageway to her left.

And it was filled with faces.

Jeanne froze at its mouth. The faces were on the walls, or rather in them. Stuck there under what had been carved like a fine veil of stone. Most were human enough. Not all, or she wasn’t sure. Some were disfigured, grotesque. All of them were frozen in pained and terrified expressions.

Jeanne shivered. _Hold on to your left_ , Lyserg had said. But should she really go through that? If there were traps, if there were dangers in this labyrinth like the skeleton seemed to show, this felt like an obvious one.

But Lyserg’s advice.

Swallowing, she took a few steps into the passage. It immediately felt like a horrifically wrong decision. Countless eyes, this time visible easily enough, all staring right at her. She didn’t mind big groups usually. Took the lead, well enough. But this? Her own eyes met the ground and stayed there. The thought of facing them was enough to lock her chest.

She was halfway through when they started to moan.

It started faint, like the stone itself muffled it, and then rose into a cacophony of horror from everywhere at once. Mouths gaping at her, begging for something indistinct.

Jeanne broke into a run.


	4. You starve and near exhaust me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Theater is the most important thing in the world. That’s where you get the courage to say the things you wouldn’t otherwise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where some body harm happens. When Jeanne starts to get ideas about testing her hypothesis, skip to the next part if that kind of thing is not for you.

Labyrinth First Ring / Third Hour

Jeanne ran screaming.

Instantly they were after her, though it shouldn’t have been possible. She dared not look back, but she heard them well enough, heavy footsteps and the sound of stone grinding against stone. Whatever it was, it wanted to hurt her.

In her panic she took the first path that went out of the straight corridor. It snaked to her right. Then there was another. Her mind was littered with images of stone faces bearing down on her. Tearing at her limbs. Turning her into one more sculpture on the wall. She didn’t look back.

She took another sharp turn, sped up even more, turned again.

Right into a dead end.

Jeanne froze where she stood. She didn’t need to turn to know that the way back was gone. The things after her were too close, and the hallway she had taken too long. She was caught.

“Here,” a familiar voice called.

Jeanne turned, and saw the white demon she’d seen outside. Z, if that was his name. He sat on top of the wall, a wall too high and too smooth to be climbed.

“Where,” she asked breathlessly.

“Here,” and he pointed to a small gap below him. It couldn’t have been more than one foot high, and not that wide, either. Above it, there were a few words etched in the stone.

_Crawl before the King,_ she read, _or take your hero’s stand_. “What does that mean?”

The white thing shook its long appendages. “You don’t have time to worry about that. Just sneak in there and obey the rules.”

Jeanne frowned. “Pardon? I’m not going to crawl before him! I…”

“You don’t have time,” he said crisply. The moaning of her pursuers was growing louder. “Get a looksie before you go, it should clear it all right up.”

He was right. She did not have much of a choice. Kneeling before the gap, she glanced at the other side.

And… it was breathtaking. Beyond the wall, there was a cute, grassy alleyway, very different from the rotting labyrinth she had just come from. The grass was lilac blue, and speckled with flowers she had never seen before, but it was grass.

She started to crawl through, and then realized something odd.

Everything… stopped. Roughly a few inches above the edge of the crawlspace. Nothing grew further up, not a sapling, not a flower.

Jeanne would have turned back, asked the demon what it all meant, but the heavy footsteps of her pursuers were growing very near. She would just have to trust him.

Holding her breath, she lied down on the ground and crawled out of the labyrinth and into the gardens. She crawled several feet out of the stone hallway until she was completely sure she would be out of reach, by which point she was sweating and breathing hard. Then she went still, and listened.

The noise was still there, on the other side of the wall. She couldn’t look back, so she was spared the vision of whatever scraped against the wall but she definitely heard it. Still the same moaning sounds, except agitated, now. Even angry.

Jeanne stayed exactly where she was and held her breath. She prayed they would not notice the gap. Would not think to crawl through. Would not wrap a tentacle around her ankle and drag her screaming.

It seemed they didn’t, but they kept moaning. _Shut up, shut up, shut up_ , she prayed. It seemed to last forever, a forever during which she did not dare breathe. Face stubbornly forward, she looked at what was before her, though not much registered.

What she had thought was grass was grass. There were small bees in various colors dancing around the flowers.

They never moved above them, though.

Jeanne still wasn’t sure why until she noticed the metal mesh that separated her alley from the grass. It was dark purple and blurred into its surroundings, but she followed its curve with her eyes. And it was cut.

Cut at the same height everything else stopped. It didn’t look random or torn, either. It matched its surroundings, cut evenly like the world just stopped at this height.

What could have cut through wrought iron and grass at the same time?

Very distinctly, then, a raven called.

That made her realize her pursuers had stopped moaning. That also made her spine tingle.

_Crawl before the King or take your hero’s stand_. She had read it as an insult, as mockery, or perhaps a call to boldness. Now it sounded more like a warning.

She couldn’t turn back to look. She didn’t know how much spare space there was above her head and she didn’t want to take risks. She was here, now, and it was different, so it had to be progress. She started crawling.

It was slow progress. Difficult. She had never done much crawling before and didn’t realize how exhausting it was. Her muscles started to protest and cramp up, and she had to pause.

The grass peeking in between the tiles tickled at her nose, teased her into unease. She closed her eyes and tried to think. How long since she left the Goblin King? How long until Tamao ran out of time?

The sky had yet to change.

After a while she moved again. From where she lay she couldn’t see an end to the grass, and there was the impatient urge to sit up, just to _know_. Jeanne did not give in, but the urge was still there.

It was hard, too, to see whether the grass was still the same length. Had it gotten shorter? Was it simply newer? There were no saplings here, and the mesh had ended some way back. All she had was these short strands of purple.

She took another break and then progressed to a spot where the earth softened. No more grass, but a muddy bank, slippery. Jeanne turned sideways, tried to keep out. There was no sense in following a path that was no longer one. At least the grass didn’t feel too gross.

But try as she might, the earth before her was softening, browning into mud. Her muscles were begging her to stop again, and her cape dug into her throat. At her next break she tried to feel for fastenings, but she could not find any.

It was during that break she heard the water. Water. That meant a depression in the ground. That meant a spot where she would have more space. With renewed energy she crawled past the last patches of grass, into the muddy earth, and saw the stream.

The ground didn’t bend down to meet it. It had to be very shallow, for she could see the earth right beneath it, and it cut through the entire alleyway. Now that she was out of the grass she saw the walls, one at each side, both had small openings where the water disappeared. Not much smaller than what she had crawled through.

Jeanne dug her fingers in the dirt. If she wanted to get through, she would have to crawl through this water. And because the grass was sparse, she would have to keep as close to the ground as she could, just to be safe.

She felt tired and confused, and she didn’t move for some time. Part of her still wanted it to be a joke. A bad joke meant to slow down the Challenger. Perhaps someone was just unnaturally good at cutting material and had manicured this lawn to confuse. She was certainly confused enough.

She wanted to get up, to scream, to spit in the king’s face. To take her hero’s stand, come what may.

More than that she wanted Tamao.

Before she did stand she needed to test the hypothesis. It was a must; it was what was prudent. Sieving through the mud she found a little stick, heavy enough to be thrown. Then she threw it, keeping her arm as level with her head as she could, towards the hole the water flowed through.

She did not understand what zoomed past her then. It was large, maybe as large as her chest, and black. With wings.

A raven, but more than a raven. The stick never fell. The bird did; it flew right into the wall and into the water with a terrible sound. Jeanne almost felt bad for baiting it this way, as she saw its black mass disappear below the wall.

Then she realized her hand burned.

She looked confusedly at the red flower blooming around her ring finger. It bled thickly, but Jeanne could not comprehend what ‘it’ was.

Her pinking and middle fingers were raw from the crawling. She counted her fingers again. Thumb, index, middle.

Pinkie.

There was no ring finger anymore. It had been torn right from her palm.

She screamed. It must have been the pain that kept her to the ground, because she did not rise, did not try to flee. After staring at it screaming, she cradled it against her, and screamed and screamed until her voice went hoarse.

It lasted forever. She wasn’t sure she was conscious for all of it. Nothing changed, anyways. She still didn’t have a finger. Blood oozed down towards her muddy costume.

Hemorrhaging. Marco was back in her head. She had done everything wrong. Faced with a separated limb, one was to… one was to…

She shivered violently. It felt so cold. Her muscles seized up, refusing to move at all, and her hands were numb and clammy.

She was going in hypovolemic shock, a voice said in her head. Or maybe neurogenic. She needed to act now. Any time lost was time she lost blood and risked infection. She had to find a doctor, and fast.

Which meant…

She looked at the river again and her stomach filled with lead. She couldn’t assume there was only one raven. She still couldn’t rise.

She also couldn’t continue in this garden. She would lose her mind, and more than her finger. Slowly she eyed the passage where the beast had vanished. Perhaps if she found her finger, she could…

It was a struggle to even begin crawling towards the water. Her hand burned still, and it was _worse_ when she plunged it in the flowing river. The cold water cleaned it of debris and stopped the bleeding. Then she moved back and tore at her cape fastidiously – this thread was _solid_ – to gather a dressing that could somewhat be wrapped around her now-clean hand. Tying it up with just one hand and her teeth was a struggle, but she didn’t allow herself to stop. If she stopped she would never move again.

With a deep breath she started to crawl into the river. Got her elbows in. Her head in, though she kept her nose above the line of the water. It was freezing and her clothes immediately became heavy, holding her back, threatening to roll her away and carry her like a stone. At least she was not fighting the current. She just crawled, one muscle after the over, towards the opening in the wall, and ignored the digging of the rocks into her forearms. She felt so cold. She had never been sportsy. This was… this was too much.

When she thought this was too much she hauled her bust under the wall, and with all of her remaining strength she pushed until she was all in. There was precious little light down here, but she was glad to be out of the orange sky, and better than that: there was a turn, and the tunnel opened upwards.

It took all she had to hoist herself up out of the water and onto the ledge she found there, out of sight and of reach of the thing that had taken her finger. Her whole body shook.

Hypothermia. That and the shock. She needed a doctor. She needed a doctor. Otherwise…

Otherwise this, her mind rationalized. This slowing of her thoughts, of her systems. Panic urged her on, pushing her to stand in the water. Her body revolted, and she felt her chest heave in sobs, but she waded through the water until she couldn’t feel it anymore. It was just this heavy burden she had to carry, and the burden was her body. It begged and negged and demanded and Jeanne refused to listen to it.

Her thoughts similarly blurred. She was still in the water, in the nigh almost dark, but her thoughts were drifting. To how hungry she was, first. How long since lunch? She really could have done with a biscuit or two.

To her right, suddenly, an opening in the wall. An opening above the water line.

A dry path!

She climbed laboriously into the opening and started to crawl again, this time on her hands and knees. It had felt like a spark of hope, but it dulled almost instantly. Her thoughts were getting blurrier. Fatigue, shock. _I am dying_ , a voice said in her head. Still she managed to move forward, one hand after another, refusing to give in, refusing to stop.

And then she put her weight forward and the ground gave in, sending her tumbling down into the dark.

Oubliette / Fourth Hour

Jeanne fell forward in complete and utter silence. She had no strength to scream, and for a moment the fall was not painful. Just very long, and dark.

Then the tunnel bottomed out into a small, stuffy room, and she rolled into uncomfortably firm things. It knocked all wind out of her, and she stayed there a while. Gravity said it was fine enough for her.

There was a dull sound of metal grinding against stone above her.

_I am dying_ , the voice said in her head, and she sat up. She could not give in, could not stop. Tamao needed her. So, in spite of the screaming of her muscles, in spite of the burning in her hand, Jeanne stood and looked around.

It was a room indeed, manmade, or at least made by something. The hole she had fallen out of was still there, in the ceiling next to the wall. The sound she’d heard was someone covering the hold with a thick metal cover. In the dark she glimpsed a wooden bucket, and large, empty shackles. Cobwebs brushed against her from all sides, ghostly hands she prayed were empty.

There was no light at all.

Then how was it she could still see?

Ignoring the litany of pain in her head she set out to take stock of the room. Her right hand she kept against her, worried about bumping the wound somewhere. She couldn’t do anything against infection, and she hadn’t found her finger, so these two worries were moot. Hopefully if she managed to drag Tamao out of the labyrinth it would go back to normal. Or else… or else she would demand the King heal her.

_No thinking about this_ , she told herself. She had to focus on the now. To keep moving.

But it seemed she was completely stuck. There were no doors. Her clothes were muddy and waterlogged, making every move a chore. She tugged on her cape again, but there weren’t any fastenings to undo, and the collar was much sturdier than its hem.

At length she sat back down. There was nothing here that she could see. Just the bucked and the shackles. And her, now. She wanted to cry.

“Hey, don’t go around sitting on people! ‘s not right!”

She nigh jumped. Someone spoke! Someone right beneath her!

Beneath her?

Dragging herself away from the spot, she used her intact hand to dig around in the dirt until she found a small key. It was maybe as tall as her thumb, but in the dark she couldn’t see any details. She dug further, but found just the cold, hard ground, and rocks that scratched back.

So who spoke? None of this made sense.

“Yes, you got me, that’s me you heard!”

She had left the key in her lap not to lose it, and this time it was unmistakeable: the voice came right from it. Jeanne peered confusedly at it until she discovered a tiny, tiny window on its shank. And inside… inside, a very, very small being looked up at her, brows furrowed.

“What… what are you?”

“That’s not a polite thing to ask, is it? Especially after sitting on me!”

It was green all over, with bulbous eyes and a strip of purple wrapped around its head. She couldn’t see much more of it. Jeanne blinked. Then, mechanically, she rose and searched the room again.

“What are you doing?”

“Looking for a door. If there’s a key…”

“Oh, there aren’t any.”

And he did seem to be right. The walls were uniformly solid.

“Then why…?”

“Simple, really. Oubliettes are not meant to be easy.”

“Oubliettes? Wait, I know those.”

She had visited one, once. A King’s prison. A place where you put people to forget about them. But if she was in one…

If she was in one, she wouldn’t get out again. She was here to be _forgotten_ , wasn’t she?

“It’s not fair,” she whispered, leaning against the wall. “After all of this, it’s not fair!”

“It doesn’t have to be fair,” the King said beside her, his gaze obnoxiously condescending. “Do you appreciate my Labyrinth so far?”

Jeanne froze and muffled a scream when she realized. Instantly, she tucked her wounded hand behind her. She did not know why, but she did not want his eyes on her wound. She didn’t, either, want him to know how terrified she was. Or that she hadn’t seen him coming.

“This isn’t a labyrinth,” she said as calmly as she could. “It’s a giant bear trap. That’s what it is.”

“I’m not the one who challenged the Goblin King in his house,” he said with a lazy smirk. “I did offer you your dreams.”

Nonsense, is what he was.

“You know I didn’t mean to send her.”

“Wishes do not come true on accident. You did mean to send _someone_ over. So why her?”

“It was just a play,” she whispered dejectedly, as she continued to inch away from him.

“Ah, plays.”

He froze her with a smirk too wide for his face. Like it was just about to tear through his cheeks. “Theater is the most important thing in the world. That’s where you get the courage to say the things you wouldn’t otherwise.”

He made no sense at all. “I don’t want her to be gone where I can’t reach her.”

“Then what do you want?”

Jeanne opened her mouth, and then fumbled. “I…”

“Oh, what do you have there? Show me.”

And try as she might to back away, he was on her in an instant, grabbing her hand. He drew it to him. She tried to kick his knee in, only managed to lose her balance and fall against him. He did not complain, did not drop her; just loosely wrapped his free arm around her waist, entirely focused on her mangled hand.

“Ah,” he said absently, flicking away the strips of fabric covering the wound. It had stopped bleeding in the water, but it looked horrible. “So the ravens got to you, then.”

Jeanne tried to regain her footing, could not manage to lean back far enough. “It’s nothing. I’ll manage.”

“Will you?”

His gaze flicked to her, and she froze again. She couldn’t say what it was that made it hard to breathe. Her voice came out in a rasp: “I’ll have to, won’t I?”

He blinked, then slowly, carefully dusted the wound from the last scraps of nothing. “Curiosity killed the cat and all of that, I suppose. But as I told you, I can be generous.”

Jeanne swallowed.

“Let me give you something as a replacement.”

She didn’t know what he was about to do, didn’t know how to feel about it. “I didn’t ask you to…”

“No, you didn’t. Consider this given freely, then.”

His cold, gloved finger touched her wound directly. Jeanne expected it to hurt. Cried out in pure shock. Instead… instead after the first moment of cold heat bloomed into her absent finger. It radiated from her hand and all the way through her arm and her chest. She didn’t feel as numb; new aches and pains once buried by the cold came back. It was painful, but she knew that was good. Pain was good. Pain meant life coming back to her limbs. She wouldn’t protest.

Through her hand another feeling rose, and in spite of the shivers Jeanne turned her attention back to it. It started to itch terribly, but she still didn’t want to move. Almost didn’t want to look.

“Don’t close your eyes,” he warned, and she watched as… something, something that wasn’t quite skin and bone, grew from where her finger had been. She let out a keening sound that wouldn’t be swallowed, but he didn’t mock it. What was this?

“It should serve you just as well,” he said, as _it_ bloomed under his fingers, hard and thin and too white to be skin. It looked like wood and it wasn’t hers. Worse, it… it was _spreading_ , she couldn’t tell if the feeling was real or not but she felt like roots were burrowing under her palm. Looking at it among her fingers she almost expected it to grow flowers. What had he done?

“Do not thank me,” he said, and it was a command. “And now you will have to excuse me. I do have a new subject to give a warm welcome to.”

He gently pushed her back, and she stumbled weakly, holding on to the wall for support. Then from his pocket he withdrew a key, identical to the one she had found and lost. He held it out in front of him.

And snapped it in two, setting it ablaze.

Whoever or whatever was inside his started screaming. Jeanne stepped back in horror, and Hao turned to ashes before her eyes. The screams persisted for a few seconds, and then faded, leaving her in the dark.

Jeanne blinked rapidly. The fire was imprinted on her pupils, peopling the shadows with dancing tongues of heat. For a moment she stayed where she was against the wall, then she dropped to her knees and looked for her own key. It was on the ground, a few feet from her.

And its inhabitant was sobbing. “Please,” he begged. “Please don’t burn me. Please, please, pretty, don’t burn me. It will hurt so much, you heard it, please…”

Jeanne moved to go through her pockets. She had forgotten yet again that her costume didn’t have any. Even if she had her own clothes, she wouldn’t have found matches, or a lighter.

How was she supposed to do it? How was she supposed to…?

“Please,” the small thing screamed as she looked around. “Please, don’t, you won’t, please don’t!”

Jeanne stopped. For real stopped, all movements caught, and looked at it. Him. Was she really supposed to… burn this little one alive? “There is a door,” she said quietly. “Where is the door?”

There had to be a door. A way out of here that wasn’t through his death.

He was crying, tears as big as his eyes, and she wondered if he could drown in them. His cell was so small, and he seemed so pitiful.

“Where’s the door?”

He was sobbing too hard to talk, and yet, like he had to, he opened his mouth to reply: “There’s no door.”

“How do I get to the Castle, then?”

“You…” He choked. “The key must be destroyed for you to be transported to the Castle.”

“But that would hurt you.”

He nodded. His face was torn in an agony he must have been anticipating.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” she insisted. “There must be another solution.”

Cradling him in her wounded hand, she went through the cell again. Hao’s presence seemed to have changed the room somehow. The light was stronger, the cobwebs less frequent. It was still far from comfortable, but she saw what she was doing.

There had to be a door. A passage, somehow.

“There is a door,” she insisted to the void. “I will find a door.”

She couldn’t find any. At the end of her rope, she stomped towards the hole she’d fallen through and tried the grate.

To her surprise, it gave way easily, and she managed to push it far enough to allow her through.

There wasn’t a door, but she’d made one. She felt a surge of pride. There, right in the King’s face. She’d managed something.

First she put the key on the ground outside. She would rather climb all the way back into the slippery tunnels next to the garden than to hurt this innocent… thing. Yeah.

Placing both hands firmly on the ground beyond the grate, she raised her foot against the wall and used it to host herself out of the cell. She’d lost some muscle since her last fencing lesson, but it would have to do. With a grunt she pushed herself up, getting her shoulders, then her hips out. For a split second she worried about her feet catching the grate, and then she managed to kick against it and roll out.

“I did it,” she whispered, mostly for herself, jumping up to her feet. “I did it!”

Thunder answered. It shook the very world around her, and rain followed. She was still recovering and she jumped, suddenly hyperaware of where she was. She wasn’t lying at the lip of a hole, looking up a dark tunnel. In fact there was no tunnel. No walls. Nothing like that.

She was standing on a muddy field. The sky stretched in red and purple hues, sometimes streaked with ugly brown. She had never seen such a storm. Clouds rose in angry cliffs and teeth.

“Where… where am I?”

“We are in the mugwort steppes,” the elf said. “Far below the Kingdom.” His voice was grim somehow. Jeanne had almost forgotten about him, and she looked for the key. He was still here. Wherever “here” was.

“See,” she told him. “I found a way. I didn’t have to hurt you.”

The elf grimaced. “You didn’t hurt me, but you didn’t _pass_. You refused the trial.”

Jeanne blinked, unable to understand. His grin didn’t seem all that apologetic now. It had edges. “What?”

“To enter the Castle, you needed to break the key.” His grin was definitely twisted. “You failed the trial. You bailed on your friend.”

“What are you talking about? I didn’t do any of that. I was presented with a challenge and I found a creative solution.”

Looking away from him she tried to find the Castle. As if on cue, lightning opened the sky. For a short moment, the steppes were bathed in red light, and Jeanne saw dips and peaks, forests and streams, and then, finally, at the edge of the horizon, something like a very high wall descending from the sky.

None of it made sense. There was no sign of the labyrinth or the castle anywhere.

“This cannot be true,” she whispered. “That’s not true! That’s not fair!”

The only answer came from the sky. If the rain had been soothing a moment earlier, it now fell thick, almost syrupy. Jeanne thought of walking through that mud. It would take hours, days maybe, and she didn’t even know where she was going. It wasn’t fair!

“Tamao,” she called, as loud as she could. “Tamao! I didn’t mean to, I promise! I’m coming for you! Hang on, I’m coming! Tamao!”

She screamed and screamed, but the storm swallowed all of her tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you like the story so far! I'd love to know what you think^^


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Princess,” he whispered in her ear, “may I be more familiar than polite?”

Goblin Castle / Fourth Hour

Tamao had never felt the need to oversleep. She would actually feel pretty queasy if she slept too much. And right now, it felt like she had slept for way too long.

She was lying face down in a bed of feathers. Sleep had gathered an uncomfortable weight in her spine, in the bones of her arms, in her knees. She who never struggled to rise only felt one thing: the desire to close her eyes and go back to sleep.

That felt so unnatural that she really, really wanted to get up.

Raising her head, she first tried to look around. Each muscle contracting and relaxing felt like a chore. She couldn’t see anything, anyways. It wasn’t just that the place was dark, though it was. But beyond the first few dozens of inches she simply couldn’t see anything. Like she was the prisoner of a gigantic egg. Inside there were only the blankets, soft and silky, the nice heat, the irresistible pull of sleep.

Pushing on her wrists, she tried to sit up. Instantly pain shot through her arms and she fell back in the soft fabric. A migraine throbbed behind her head, and she felt her consciousness slip, little by little. Why did she even try? It felt so good to be in bed.

And yet…

Muffling a frustrated groan, she gathered her legs under her. Perhaps if she pushed hard enough, she could roll out of the bed. She would get hurt in the fall, probably, but…

With all of her energy she pushed, and her body traversed what she understood to be the egg. It then promptly rolled heels over head onto varnished floorboards, and she somehow didn’t twist her neck but it was a close thing.

Lying down on the floor she looked around curiously. She was in a room heavily decorated with heavy pink draperies. The bed itself, when she sat up, looked like a normal bed, albeit not one she’d ever imagined sleeping in. It had a huge canopy, like those of Versailles when she visited. It was also gigantic. Much bigger than she.

As she rose to her feet, she heard the rustle of her own clothes and frowned. Her clothes didn’t rustle. She had apparently slept in a long dress of dark pink taffetas, adorned with black lace. Who would sleep in such a beautiful thing? She could have ruined it, and then they would have had to make another one.

It luckily didn’t seem to have sustained any tears from her sleep. No snagged threads, no holes… Tamao combed her hair back, feeling confused. Sleep still sang in her veins, asking her to get her back to bed.

Instead she made for the door. The knob was at eye-level, which was odd, but it was a good thing she stopped in her tracks to check it out because voices then erupted from the other side of the door.

“What are you doing, what are you doing?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m listening!”

“What to? The princess is sleeping! And the King said you must let her sleep!”

“Well the King can go shit an egg or something! I want to listen!”

Tamao blinked, and instinctively held her breath. The voices were high-strung and sharp. Creepy.

“Sod off, simpleton. You’re not allowed. Shoo!”

A yell told her the being outside the door was being beaten away. Listening carefully, she heard footsteps going down the hallway, and then the yelling died down until she couldn’t hear it at all.

Nervously holding on to the door, she opened it and took a peek. The hallway was empty. That, at least, was good; she snuck out on the tip of her toes, grimacing at every sound she made.

In front of her door was another one, but it was locked. Rather than fight the lock, she stepped down the corridor and promptly got lost in a maze of confusing passages. There were no windows or signs telling her where to go. At some point she heard a noise that wasn’t hers; immediately she turned tail, and in her panic, even if she wanted to, she wouldn’t have been able to go back to her room.

After much searching, she arrived in front of a taller door, engraved beautifully. It didn’t seem like the high-pitched creatures she’d heard would have the patience for such things; maybe she was about to find someone who’d tell her what was happening.

She opened the door and stepped into a library of gigantic proportions. It used at least two floors, if not three; her door opened to a balcony that ran the length of the room. Just like all the doorknobs she had found, the bannister seemed out of proportion. Its supporting pillars were as tall as she was, and almost wide enough for her to slip through. Against the wall there were bookshelves filled with ancient tomes. She leaned close to one, found them well-used and well-taken care of. Someone did live here. Someone who read books.

That had to be a good sign.

Staying close to the shelves, she crept across the balcony. The first door she tried was locked; she was only feet away from the second when she heard it again. The pitter-patter of feet and the high-pitched voices she’d been avoiding since she left her room.

That was when she first saw them, the little creatures. They burst into the lowest level of the library. There were two of them. One was carrying a chunk of… something, in its maw.

 _Creatures_ was the only word for them that didn’t immediately terrify her. They had childish proportions, but their features were so far out of the childish range it was impossible to be beguiled for more than a second.

Green skin. Deep crusted lines that looked like indents in stone. Noses so small they were barely there. White, unkempt hair. They felt like an incarnation of sickness, of plague. They wore little suits of makeshift armor, obviously made of bits and bobs – parodies, rather than the real thing.

“Mine! It’s mine! Give it back!”

“Hrmdh!”

The one with the busy mouth made a rude gesture and tried to run around a shelf. The second one was foolish enough to follow, but lucky enough that the first tripped and rolled into a table, sending a few books and a vase to crash down and explode.

Tamao watched with revulsed fascination and a hand on her mouth. They fought in earnest now, tugging at their hair-fur, slamming hands and feet into noses and shins. One bit the other’s cheek. And yet for all their fury they were rather funny. Perhaps it was all that high-pitched squeaking.

“What are you doing in here, dickgobbers?”

A third creature ran into the library, in such a hurry to stop the fight that he stumbled on a discarded book and fell right into the scuffle. He was immediately accepted as a new challenger, and the fight started anew. More creatures stepped in to watch, like they were all on a playground.

“By the King’s socks, stop! Stop! I didn’t ask for any of this!”

“If you hadn’t you wouldn’t be stepping on me nose!”

“He’ll give you feathers and throw you out of a window!”

“He’ll send you both to the Bog of Eternal Stench, that’s what he’ll do!”

“Gah! Don’t use that name, bad luck!”

In spite of herself Tamao giggled. What _was_ that name? Whoever decided to name this kingdom’s locations must have had a very literal sense of humor.

“Woah,” someone whispered behind her. “The Princess.”

Tamao jumped, her taffetas whispering around her. She’d been spotted! She’d been spotted!

By two of the creatures, no less. She’d managed not to scream, even though they stood so close. They were between her and her door, and they reached her shoulder – barely. Those two did not have armor, just little colorful tunics, one pink and one beige. Both looked at her like she was Tom Cruz.

Instinctively she drew a finger against her lips. “Shh. Please, please, don’t yell.”

Their eyes widened, and they gave her a furious nod of what she hoped was agreement.

“I need to leave. Where can we hide?”

When they didn’t react, she nodded towards the loud brawl. “I… I want to talk privately. Where – where can we hide?”

They thought about it, whispered things in each other’s ears, and then seemed to have a bright idea. “The King’s office! Nobody’s allowed in!”

Pink pointed to a door in the very center of the balcony. Tamao hadn’t reached it quite yet. She frowned at how… ornate, the door was. “But if nobody’s allowed, aren’t we…”

“Oh, he won’t say anything about the _Princess_ coming into one of his offices!”

“Plus you’re too cute.”

“He means you have big,” the other added, but his words were covered by the brawl below.

Tamao reddened. She hadn’t heard the word, but the rather graphic gesture he followed it with was telling enough. “You two are horrible!”

“Oh, no. We’re just goblins,” the first one smiled. He had entirely too many teeth. His face was thin, almost fox-like, and he was smaller than his counterpart.

She swallowed. “Are – are there goblins in the office?”

“Never!”

“We wasn’t dare!”

“The King would chuck us nose first in the Bog of Eternal Stench.”

“Or send us to the creepy witches,” the other shivered.

That was enough for her. As discreetly as she could, Tamao tiptoed to the door, and to her relief found it unlocked. She sneaked in, and the two goblins followed before she could protest. They all discovered the office at the same time – _one of his offices_ , the goblin had said.

Their chirping covered Tamao’s own stifled gasp. For _one of the offices_ it was big, bigger than she had thought outside. At one end there was this large desk that could have belonged to a CEO. Anna would have killed for something like that. There were yet more bookshelves here, but the monotony of books was broken by odd and wonderful gleaming objects. Some didn’t have an obvious purpose, but all were terrifyingly intriguing. On the walls, there were maps. None of them fit anything she knew. She took a few steps towards one, squinting because of how high it was on the wall, and was immediately drawn out of her thoughts by the sound of a nearby crash.

Pink had sauntered to one of the things on the shelf. In his haste, his feet caught in the carpet, and he knocked over what seemed to be a large orb of crystal. It fell on the ground with an ominous _bop_ , and then rolled away while the goblin gripped his foot, obviously hurt.

“What did you do,” Beige yelled. “King be mad! King be mad!”

“Not my fault! Fabric tricky!”

“Let me see,” and Tamao bent down to look. There wasn’t any torn skin, and the foot itself didn’t seem twisted or misaligned. For all she could tell it wasn’t hurt. “You’re okay.”

“You think? It really hurts!”

He insisted, shoving the foot in her face. His own told a tale of panic and storm. They were… they were children. The both of them, and the ones outside. Odd-looking, hideous children, but children, and that was a relief. She knew how to soothe children.

So, taking a breath, she drew the foot in the lap of her dress and waved her hands over it, singing: “ _Teru-teru-bôzu, teru bôzu, ashita tenki ni_ …”

She could see it working on his face. It wasn’t magic; of course not. She was singing a children’s song, for the children in front of her. What mattered was that these goblins didn’t know any of that, and thus were soothed. Even Beige sat down to listen, clearly pulled in. she went to the end of the stanza, and with a smile she bent down to pretend-kiss the injured foot. In reality, of course, she never was close to it, instead quickly brushing her finger against it. The illusion was perfect, or so she hoped. It worked well enough on Hana.

She heard them gasp.

“A kiss! A Princess kiss!”

“Good luck? Bad luck? I don’t know if I should stay by you or nah!”

“You better stay! Maybe we’ll find the King’s secret stash with all this luck!”

“Maybe the Princess will kiss me elsewhere…”

Flushing, she pushed the goblin away. “How dare you? You’re horrible!”

“Don’t be mad, don’t be mad,” he yelled back, scrambling to hide behind his friend. “He said it, not me!”

And Beige gave her what she guessed was his best seductive smile. With a sigh, she gathered the orb. It was heavy, but it wasn’t cracked, and she let out another sigh, this time of relief. It was oddly warm to the touch, too.

“I wonder why it changed colors…”

It had begun transparent, but since it rolled on the floor it had changed. Now it looked like the dawn, all in greys and soft pinks. She could feel herself drawn to it, a sweet pull that smelled of strawberries and summer. Instantly the feeling made her wary.

“Better put it back.”

Carefully she carried it to its pedestal and placed it there. There was a velvet throw that had seemingly been tugged off by the stumble; she put it over the orb once more. Immediately the pull faded.

The two goblins were quiet. No doubt they expected her to be angry.

“What are your names?”

“Ponchi,” said Pink, and “Conchi,” said Beige.

“You’re very pretty, princess.”

Tamao sighed a little louder. “Please don’t speak like that. And don’t touch anything, this time.”

If she wanted to hide in here these two would be a big issue. She could have told them to leave; they seemed cowed enough to listen. But… who could tell if they wouldn’t hightail it to the other goblins and bring them all here? If they were all like this –

Or worse, what if they went to get this King they talked about –

“Please be nice,” she repeated, before looking at the maps again. She couldn’t really focus on them, because she had to constantly look at the two goblins and make sure they weren’t misbehaving. Still, she looked.

The first one described a sprawling city centered around a huge castle. It was surrounded by gardens and high walls, and perhaps even a river, but she wasn’t sure. Beyond that was a maze. Then there was a forest that seemed to grow upwards from lower in the world, and then just empty parchment in the lower part of the map, with stains that could perhaps be coins. She couldn’t read any of the words; they all seemed to be written in an alphabet that was neither European nor Japanese. It looked completely alien.

“Ponchi,” she called. “Can you tell me what this is?”

“No idea, Princess.”

“How so? Don’t you… You know? Live here?”

“On account I cannot read, Princess. We mostly try to stay out of the King’s way.”

The king. It wasn’t the first time they mentioned that figure. Tamao wondered what Jeanne would make of this weird dream of hers. Then she blinked a few times, as if to chase the sleep away.

 _Jeanne_.

Everything tumbled out of place. Where was she? She remembered the party, Jeanne dancing, Jeanne reading her play in the apartment… And then nothing. And then little creatures out of dreams or nightmares, this beautiful dress that probably would cost her a decade in salary, a king. France didn’t have kings anymore.

And now she realized there was something horribly wrong with her body. She was smaller. In fact, she felt like she had been forced into a ten-year-old’s body. When she felt them her cheeks felt pudgy. Her hands were perfect and soft; her muscles were… Well, she didn’t have any. The things around her weren’t _tall_ , she was _small_. Even the dress. It was a child’s dress.

What had been done to her? She felt sick. Tottering over to the desk, large and mahogany, in the back of the room, she looked for a chair to sit down in, but even that was so out of proportion. She had to climb into it gauchely, with eyes that felt hot and full. What could she do? Where was Jeanne? This was a nightmare. Why was she alone with these odd creatures?

“Yoh,” she whispered out loud. “I want Yoh.” He would know what to do. He wouldn’t leave her alone in this strange world. He was too nice for that. And Anna would allow it, wouldn’t she? Jeanne could find them, she had their number. She could explain, she could convince…

“I thought there was a strange smell here,” a voice whispered from the door. Surprised, Tamao fell right out of the chair and sneaked behind the desk. This was a voice she’d never heard before, and yet she could feel her entire body tingle. It carried like a threat.

There, hiding in the crawlspace below the desk, she remembered Conchi and Ponchi, still in the middle of the room. She couldn’t see them, but in their voices she heard fear.

“’S not out fault, sir!”

“Not your fault?”

“Is the Princess, sire! She hired us!”

“As her personal guards!”

“Hired, you say? Wonderful. It is important she takes up responsibilities. I wish she had chosen better than you two, though. But I suppose one must start somewhere.

Their teeth chattered so violently Tamao heard it. With a hand on her mouth, she stifled a sob she wasn’t sure she understood. Her two new… friends? Charges? They’d helped her. They were in danger now, because of her. The authority in this voice terrified her. She couldn’t even begin to understand what he was on about. Responsibilities? They couldn’t be talking about her. But it had to be about her. She didn’t understand.

“Well?”

“Well? Sire?”

“Well, where is she?” Impatient, now. “Don’t make yourself slower than you are, Couch.”

“It’s Conchi, sire.”

“Do I look like I care? Answer me.”

“A-answer… answer what, sire?”

Was this genuine? Was Conchi trying to help protect her? She wished dearly he didn’t. She didn’t want him to be hurt.

There was a sigh, and then the hiss of something. A crop? Conchi yelped.

“Where,” the voice asked again, dark and menacing, “is the princess?”

Ponchi stammered. “I, I think you spooked her, sire. She’s, she’s hiding.”

“Oh? Oh, poor dear. Do let me redress that mistake immediately. So tell me. _Where. Is. She_?”

They swallowed, and hesitated, and Tamao felt an odd surge of emotion for these two perverted creatures who were trying to protect her.

“I am waiting.”

“B-Behind the desk, sire.”

Tamao almost didn’t feel betrayed. They tried. At least they tried.

“Ah, yes. Thank you, Puck.”

“Name’s…”

“Now run off before I change my mind and send you to be Tilda’s next pumpkin pie.”

Immediately there was a scramble for the door, and Tamao knew herself alone. Try as she might there were no escape route. She hugged herself tighter in the suddenly more oppressive room. He hadn’t called for guards. She didn’t feel in any way safe clinging to that fact.

“Now, princess, I will come around the desk. Please, do not fear. I mean you no harm.”

Tamao swallowed hard. There was nowhere to go that she could see. Behind the desk was the naked wall, a tapestry, and the chair. Perhaps someone braver would be able to push it into the stranger and run, but she couldn’t move. Instead she just stayed exactly where she was as boots eventually came into view.

It wasn’t the terrible warlord she had drawn up in her mind. First of all…

First of all he was human. And second, he was a child.

The boy before her couldn’t be older than ten. He had dark hair held in a low, loose ponytail; he wore a thick dark cape over a strangely ruffled shirt. Princely clothes, was the thought that crossed her mind, without being immediately understandable. European clothes, was more accurate. But he himself wasn’t. He looked like someone from home. Someone familiar. A very specific person, actually. Perhaps it was simply because he was human, and that was the comforting thought.

As he crouched and saw her, a smile crept up his face, and he held out his hand. In the other, she spied a riding crop.

“But what is this I see? Princess, are you crying?”

She flushed. She had been sad before, but he’d scared her so much she forgot; now she remembered her situation, and felt miserable, and small.

She burst into tears. From behind the watery blur she saw his smile fade, and a look of concern replace it. “Why so sad?”

She couldn’t speak. She just cried, and cried, and cried. Then, at long last, she forced words through her lips, broken and hiccupped: “I… I don’t know where I am. None of this makes sense to me. It all feels like a nightmare.”

His face softened even more, becoming achingly familiar and strange. “Let’s see if we can turn this into a nice dream, then. Are you hungry?”

He offered her his hand once more, and before she could really think about it she took it. Gently he led her out from her hiding spot, and she remembered where she was. “I, I’m sorry about coming in here, I just didn’t know where to go…”

“Not to worry. Someone should have been ready when you awoke; my mistake,” he smiled. It was warm, comforting in this rather familiar way. He definitely looked like he would have been right at home in the Asakura household.

She was very lucky. Whoever this boy may be, her presence had not aggravated him. Perhaps in spite of his mature tongue he did not really understand the situation. If the real master of the house had found her, she probably would be treated very differently. She would be lucky if she wasn’t thrown in jail immediately for putting her nose in the office of the kingdom’s ruler.

He gave her a gentle smile. “Through here, princess.” He opened the door that she had gone through, but this time it did not lead to the library. Instead it opened to a dining room with a beautiful breakfast spread on an authentic kotatsu – yes, she was sure of it, she could guess where the circuitry should be and she recognized the heavy duvet. Only its dimensions were off. They were just… too big. She didn’t think such a big thing was possible.

The prince helped her sit down at the table without upsetting her dress, and then he sat across from her. Everything looked delicious and mouth-watering. She recognized foods from home she hadn’t eaten since she left; they seemed cooked exactly the same way, from the glint of the rice to the color of the chicken.

Yet… yet she couldn’t move a finger towards it all. Her anxiety closed her throat so tight, she knew the first bite of food would be thrown right back out.

“I… I’m not sure I can eat, actually,” she whispered. She wasn’t sure she wanted him to hear, but he did, halfway through a bowl of soup that smelled so very good. He put it back down and tilted his head.

“Something troubling you?”

He seemed so… curious. Not discontent, not annoyed. Just curious. Her throat closed up even more.

“I shouldn’t be here,” she blurted out. “I don’t come from here.”

He giggled.

“From where, then? The Forest of the Departed? Spring-over-Spells? Not the Light Dimensions, right?”

Tamao blinked. None of these names felt the slightest bit familiar. But neither did anything, really. “No, I am from…”

But the name escaped her. No! It was happening again. The fog that settled over everything, _ate_ everything right out of her head. She held on to Jeanne’s name, and Yoh’s. These people were real, their world was real. She was from a human world. Not a goblin one. She knew that like she knew how to breathe, and right now it was a struggle.

The prince had started on his bowl again, making happy, entrancing noises. He was having a great time and she really, really wanted to do the same. But she had to keep holding on to her names. To the truth.

“I am not a princess. This… this dress is not mine. There has been a great misunderstanding. I must go home.”

That had him put the bowl down, alright. His eyes moved over her like he was properly taking her in for the first time. Tamao was once more afraid he would call for his guards, he would be upset, angry, but he seemed rather… sorrowful.

“You don’t know where your home is,” he noted.

For a reason she couldn’t name his tone sliced right through her heart. Tears started to stream down her face. He was right: she had no idea how to go home. How to see Jeanne and Yoh ever again. Now that she had told the truth, surely he would warn the King. She would be thrown out with nowhere to go and she would never get out of her.

Seeing her distraught face, he drew a handkerchief from his pocket and offered it to her. “But there is no need to worry. Time might let you remember. Or we’ll find you somewhere nice to be. Alright?”

Tamao buried her face into the fabric. None of his words helped, really. Apart from this odd feeling to be absolutely anywhere but in her right place, she couldn’t remember anything.

“Princess…”

The boy finally seemed at a loss for words. Like he wanted to make it better but didn’t know what to do. He was sweet, so sweet, this little boy whose name she didn’t even know. In between sobs, Tamao tried to explain it wasn’t his fault. That he had nothing to do with this. She couldn’t manage to get a word out of her throat. She was utterly unable to stop.

The boy drew his chair closer and put a comforting hand on her back. It did not really work, because she kept thinking she was forcing this poor boy to take care of her, and he was clearly important while she was nothing. She had to stop and to stop now. But… nothing worked.

“Princess,” he whispered in her ear, “may I be more familiar than polite?”

It was asked so politely, so innocently that she could only nod. In this body she didn’t seem much older than him. Maybe she would feel less confusedly ashamed if he didn’t use fancy titles for her.

“Do not cry for so little. Give it a little time, alright? Calm down.” And it was whispered so sweetly in her ear, like he was soothing a distraught kitten. Her cries slowly ebbed, leaving a white fog in her head and the itch of salt on her cheeks.

“Let’s get rid of these mean sad thoughts. These really don’t fit you. You should be happy and laughing. Oh, I have an idea! We could play. Do you like to play?”

His smile was warm, and childish, and before she could answer he continued, counting on his fingers. “Tag, mafia, hide and seek… Tell me what you like best, Tamao.”

She looked at him confusedly. The sudden tornado of words left her adrift. He had just seen her burst into tears and now he wanted to play? She was too old for that and she really could not afford to do anything with him that an adult would deem overreaching. If the King showed up…

Tamao opened her mouth to tell him no. She couldn’t play. She had to go. Now.

“Hide and seek.”

The moment she tried to put words between them, the answer he had asked for came out instead. She froze. She didn’t want to play hide and seek. The answer was true enough, she supposed – but she didn’t want to play!

And there, staring in the boy’s eyes, she realized their light had changed. It was no longer sympathy she saw in them, nor understanding. It was…

It was a bit more like hunger.


	6. There's such a fooled heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “She wished you to the goblins. Not a very rare thing, get over it.”

Goblin Castle / Fifth Hour

The boy looked at her hungrily.

Tamao swallowed.

“I – I think I need air.” Letting go of the handkerchief, she pushed back from the table and stepped back from him, looking for an exit. She felt in a daze, and with the terribly keen notion that she needed to get _out_.

Behind her back, she heard: “You want to hide first? I will count to one thousand three hundred and thirteen. Hide well!”

The door she had been stumbling towards opened by itself and she took off, nearly running. She wanted to put as much space between them as she could. There was – now that she was away, she felt it clearly – something _wrong_ with him, about the way he looked at her, the way he talked – she had to get out. He couldn’t find her.

She so dearly didn’t want to be found.

The hallway led to a large, empty room. Just a few steps before her were twin thrones, one white and one black. She almost slammed into the first, and managed to avoid it only at the last second.

Without slowing down she looked for her next door. She tried the first she found, backed away after hearing some goblins chirping out of sight. There was only the hallway in front of the stone, then. But it made her nervous: such a wide space, with echoing arches. What if someone saw her?

She couldn’t afford to run. It made too much noise. Instead she walked, counting in her head, and hugged the wall until she was near the next room. She made sure it was empty before crossing it to large double-doors. Low-level chattering had her pull back sharply, and she noticed a servant’s door. She crawled into it. The ceiling was so low she couldn’t stand straight.

In there she couldn’t hear any direct pursuers, but goblins she did hear. Below her feet: goblin men and machinery. She tiptoed to be as silent as possible. Her mind peopled the ground with reaching hands.

The tight passageway led to a crossing. Torches along the wall were replaced by open windows. _Windows_. She could see the outside!

Tamao forgot all of her qualms about being loud. She ran to the first door that had windows on each side. It was heavy, and she put all of her weight on it before it deigned to move. Then she almost fell out, and had to hold onto the wooden paneling to avoid a nasty fall.

Outside. The wind flirted with her taffetas and her hair. She was outside.

That did not mean she was out of trouble. She would have hoped for a garden, or at least a courtyard she could cross. Instead, what she found was a thin passageway bordered by crenellations. On either side: bright blue sky. She was on top of a bulwark.

Breathless, she stepped to the edge. Just to take a look.

She thought her heart would drop out of her stomach. Below her laid an immense garden quartered by high hedges. In several points they broke away to reveal thin alleys of purple flowers, and a small path. The twists and turns of the garden hedges proper were no doubt meaningless on ground level, but here she saw a design take shape. Something like… a triangle? Ornate, complicated, seductive. It hurt to look at it for too long.

Beyond one of the garden tendrils she saw vast forest, valleys and hills. A whole country, unknown.

It was…

It was an entire world she knew nothing about. None of this could be even remotely near Paris. She would have known about it. Or Jeanne would have. It didn’t look like anything she knew. Her eyes stung again. What was she going to do…?

“Oh, Princess, what’s wrong?”

Tamao rubbed at her face half-heartedly and looked back at where she came from. The door she had flung against the tower wall had rotated back to closed, revealing two slightly-crumpled goblins.

Ponchi and Conchi.

“Oh gods, I’m so sorry,” she blurted out.

“You shouldn’t stay here,” Conchi said authoritatively. “You’ll freeze!”

She blinked. She had to admit, she completely forgot about them. Forgot so thoroughly it was scary. Jeanne, Yoh, she reminded herself, as if making sure her safety harness was still on.

It was frankly bizarre, now. As soon as the boy chased them away from the office, it was like they never existed in her mind. This world was eating away at her mind.

“Hey! Are you listening?”

“She finds you cute,” Ponchi laughed. “Careful! The King may chuck you to the wastes! Or to the Bog, he knows we love that so very much.”

Conchi turned white, and Tamao, at a complete loss, tried to get at least one straight answer.

“What is this bog?”

“Oh, Princess, you don’t know?”

“It’s on the other side of the Castle. Usually kept for Challengers!”

“Or when the King doesn’t like somebody. Then he’ll throw them in! And the smell is so bad, it never leaves once it’s touched you.”

The two goblins kept prattling on, and on, and Tamao could feel herself struggling to listen. The castle, or the King, or _something_ – it was attacking her right now. She had to leave before it was all gone. She looked beyond the battlements. She still saw no path to escape, but there, far beyond the forest – there was something. Something like a… voice? A call. She couldn’t make out words, but it had an urgency to it.

She took it to heart.

“Quick,” she told her friends. “We must hide!”

They both frowned at the same time, and almost looked cute.

“What?”

“Why?”

Tamao glanced at the door.

“I’m playing a game,” she said slowly, “and I don’t want to be found.”

They looked at her, then at each other. Then they ran along the battlements. Tamao didn’t need telling to follow them, her taffetas flying around her. There was no stealth involved here: the two monsters chirped and chortled, and her flat shoes tapped loudly on the slabs of stone. There was no time to worry about any of that. They needed somewhere to hide, and now.

Then, without glancing at anything but each other, the goblins turned to the battlements and climbed, one over the other. Tamao reached them, glancing hesitantly beyond.

“What… What is this?”

“This, lady,” and there was pride in Conchi’s voice, “is the Goblin City, beyond the Labyrinth. Our King’s pride and joy.”

There was a yard separating the cinching wall from the city itself. Even with these few feet of nothing, the city was spread at her feet in multiple discombobulated protrusions in lustrous hues. She could see streets, she could see lampions lit with fires, she could see clotheslines.

She couldn’t see anyone. Perhaps because it was dusk.

“We cannot stay here long,” she reminded them.

“We know!”

“We know!”

“But Princess, the castle is full of goblins.”

“We’ll never get through unnoticed.”

Tamao followed their fingers to the next tower over. It loomed, dark and unknown, and she could imagine it, a horde of little children with white hair and grabby hands.

“Oh no… What can we do, then?”

Ponchi winked, exaggeratedly. “We’re improvising.”

Right then, Conchi let out a loud cry. Tamao jumped and then hid behind the battlement. “What are you doing? We’ll be seen!”

“It’s all good,” Ponchi yelled over the keening of his brother. “That’s just Conchi!”

“Conchi? What is he doing?”

She looked at him. He was focused: sweat poured on his large brow as he kept up the wail. At Ponchi’s insistence she stood back up and took a look at the yard. From one of the streets, a chariot full of straw was steadily making its way towards them. It looked faker than anything she’d seen. There was no driver.

“Is that Conchi?”

“Yes!”

Conchi kept wailing, and the chariot continued rolling, and then it stopped, stationed now right under them. Then the goblin stopped his howl and stumbled down onto the ground.

“A-are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, he’ll be fine,” Ponchi said. “Now go, Princess.”

Tamao blinked. “I’m sorry?”

He furrowed his brow. “That’ll be your easiest way down.”

“But I’ll break something!”

“Oh, you won’t.”

“Pinky promise,” Conchi said weakly.

“Come on! He worked hard on that.”

“Just for you.”

“Trust us, Princess,” they chorused, and Conchi patted his belly with evident satisfaction. “You’ll be right okay.”

Tamao looked at the straw, then them again. Then she remembered the cloud of goblins in the castle, and the little boy with hunger in his eyes, and she nodded. “Alright.”

Raising her leg, she climbed on the crenellation, gathered her dress about her and fell out.

It seemed to take forever. She didn’t allow herself to scream; just squeezed her eyes shut and wished it was already over. Then it was.

She hit the straw. She had been afraid it would be a brutal hit, but there was no pain. It felt like she’d been standing on the chariot itself; the straw absorbed all of the momentum and just was soft.

It still took her a few seconds to gather her wits. Then she felt for the ground of the chariot with her feet and stood upright, out of the tickling straw.

Between the crenellations she saw Conchi’s big eyebrows. He was gesturing towards her enthusiastically.

“Good fall princess! Congrats!”

She managed a little smile and a thumbs up. “I’m getting out! Your turn now!”

But he just shook his head. “We’re Castle goblins! Can’t get out without permission. And the King knows you hired us!”

She was the one to frown then. “The King?”

Had they seen him when she was with the boy?

“Don’t just stand there, Princess!”

“You must hide now! Hidey how, hide!”

“We’ll be around!”

And then Conchi’s face fell back, and she couldn’t see them at all anymore. Tamao still had many questions for the both of them, but they were right. She couldn’t stay in this straw chariot. She was an obvious escape point. Especially if she kept yelling to be heard from the battlements.

Fighting the gentle fluff around her, she extirped herself out of the chariot and jumped to the ground. She’d lost a shoe, and there was straw in her dress. It would have to do, she supposed. At least it dulled the magnificent dress somehow – even if the street wasn’t that dirty she still looked completely out of place.

She had to find a hiding spot and she had to find something to change into. She quickly made her way to the first houses and went back to hugging the wall, stopping before every window, every crossing. It took some wandering before she saw the clotheslines glimpsed above. These ones were too high to reach, but if she could find something on the ground, something behind a house perhaps?

Quickly and carefully she made her way around the sleeping streets of the Goblin City until she found what she was looking for: huge swaths of fabric, hung from the back of a tilted house.

Stealing was bad. Tamao knew as much. She’d never considered herself a criminal before. But if she left her dress – it was still very good, even if covered in straw – then it wouldn’t exactly be theft. Just an exchange.

Eh. It would still be theft. But if it quieted the voice in her head she would take it.

Glancing around she moved closer to the wall of the house. There was only one window, rather high on the wall. When she peeked the inside was dark, and it smelled of cinnamon. Abandoned? No, not with clothes hung out to dry. Her throat tightened. She didn’t want to steal from strangers. She really didn’t want to harm strangers.

She took one last look at the simpler dresses hung there and turned her back to it. Her dress would have to do.

“Ah, there you are. Not a moment too soon.”

She went still. For one second she thought the boy had found her again, but it wasn’t his voice. Still, it was too close to be talking about anyone else, wasn’t it? Dreadful she turned back towards the garden. She couldn’t see anybody.

“Are you always this slow? You don’t have time for this,” the voice said, its patience obviously growing short. It came from the clotheslines, that much was obvious now. As she took a few hesitant steps towards them, she noted one pair of shoes under the sheets. Only one person. Which meant it had to have been talking to her.

“Me,” she said weakly.

“Yes, you. Come now.”

It felt like she was compelled to obey more than she really wanted to. She was trembling as she made her way to the sheets, and then drew them out of her way, suddenly coming face to face with a face she hadn’t expected.

The voice’s owner was human. She had a rather strict expression on her human face, but she looked nothing like the boy, and Tamao decided that this was a good sign. She did not, however, make for a very comforting silhouette, with her long blue hair messy around her shoulders, and the complex tattoos that ran down her arms. She didn’t feel natural.

But it was a completely different kind of not natural than for the goblins, somehow.

Tamao didn’t know if she should feel safer or more threatened.

The woman stared at her critically. She had to fight not to flush.

Tamao swallowed. “I, I’m sorry, ma’am, but… What…” Was that impolite? It was completely impolite, downright rude even. Gods. “What are you?”

A huff. “A witch, of course. You wished away are all the same,” the woman growled. In two steps she was on her, and her hand was on Tamao’s forehead. It felt cold and clammy.

It all came back to her in one sharp moment of clarity. Jeanne. The beer. The apartment. The play. The forgetting and remembering and forgetting and.

“Oh, gods,” she whispered. “What happened to me?”

The woman stared at her passively.

“She wished you to the goblins. Not a very rare thing, get over it.”

Tamao swallowed. The air tasted salty and bitter. Suddenly the woman’s stare was too much; her eyes fell to the floor, and she struggled not to cry.

The older woman sighed loudly. “Come on in. You don’t have that much time.”

Tamao followed her without a fight. It was dark in there, but Tamao noted shelves, a table with a beautiful lace tablecloth. A small pumpkin off to the side.

A large orb filled with the dawn front and center. Just like in the King’s office.

“When she said the words,” the witch explained, “she gave you to the Labyrinth. Then she challenged the King’s just reward. He gave her thirteen hours to find and free you.”

Tamao couldn’t take her eyes away from the sphere. Her eyes stung something fierce. “What is this?”

The witch looked over her shoulder and followed her gaze, then chuckled. “This,” she repeated, fingers brushing against the polished hunk of crystal, “is how I know what I know. This is my prize.”

The dawn cleared into something else. Long white hair. Instantly Tamao knew it was Jeanne, but she couldn’t tell why; apart from the hair not much was recognizable. The figure she thought was her was crawling in beautiful purple grass, lost in the folds of a large drama costume. It was stained.

Was it blood on her hands?

“Jeanne,” she whispered, throat dangerously tight. “What happened to her?”

“She Challenged the King,” the witch repeated unhelpfully. “She entered the Labyrinth to find you. No idea what was to come, the poor thing.”

Tamao reached out with her hand and only met cold glass. “She is wounded.”

“And it’s only her second hour you’re watching. Wait and see how good she looks when she gets here.”

There was no way she would just ‘wait and see’. She wouldn’t let anything else happen to her. Turning her back on the crystal, she stared down the witch and tried to steel her gaze. She needed her to take her seriously. Jeanne needed this witch to help.

“How do I get to her? I must help.”

Jeanne had entered this place to find her. Wouldn’t the solution to go out and meet her? Then she’d be found. Then they’d both go home.

The witch looked at her and laughed. “Noble idea, but the King won’t let you. You have lost him, but not for long.”

“Lost him? I never saw him!”

“Oh, didn’t you?”

Tamao frowned. She didn’t see where this woman wanted to lead her. She hadn’t met anybody in the Castle, hadn’t seen any prying eyes. Surely she didn’t mean Ponchi and Conchi. Surely she…

“The boy,” she whispered. “The prince. He wasn’t a prince, was he?”

“He’s anything but princely, that is for sure. Yes, that’s the one who tore you apart.”

There was obvious anger on the witch’s face. Tamao half expected her to be mocking; instead she seemed bitter. Like she understood. There was no warmth in this woman but she suddenly felt a lot closer to Tamao.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did he do that? Just because Jeanne asked?”

A snort.

“Yes. Just because she asked. You’d figure adults shouldn’t be able to call on the King. Suppose she must have the blood.”

“The blood?”

“Yes. Now, she has thirteen hours to come to the Castle, or you will both be prisoners of this world.”

“But why? What’s there to gain?”

The witch tapped the glass insistently. Tamao almost ordered her to stop. Jeanne was in there. She held on to that thought.

“You are both precious to him.”

This time Tamao was just plain confused. Precious? “He doesn’t know either of us. How would we be…?”

“The Labyrinth,” the witch interrupted, “is not just a place. It is also some kind of living beast. Everything around us needs… sustenance.”

Tamao’s face fell. “It wants to eat us?”

The hunger in the boy’s eyes. She had thought it odd, off-putting, but not literal. Oh…

“More or less,” the witch said, turning away from Jeanne in her sphere and towards the shelves. “The Labyrinth feeds on human emotions. This world’s inhabitants are too weak to fuel it properly. Barely any taste to them, compared to what _you_ can do. The King’s role is to find sustenance for the Kingdom. Having you was his first victory; a Challenger is a kind of all or nothing gamble.”

There was a bitterness in her sigh. A familiar smell of spite. Tamao pressed her hands against her chest and knew she could not let this happen without a fight.

“There has to be something I can do,” she insisted. “I cannot – I will not stay here and wait. I won’t be devoured.”

“Are you certain?” The witch turned her face to glance at her, and her eyes were burning embers. “Your friend, she was the one with the book, wasn’t she? She introduced the tale to you?”

It felt like a slap, and Tamao stepped back. The implication was laid bare before her, obscene and farcical. “She didn’t mean this.”

The spite in the witch’s eyes was clearly directed at her, this time. Like her certainty was laughable. And indeed the older woman laughed and brought to the table a bottle of ink. “If you’re sure.” She uncorked it, and slid two fingers into the neck of the bottle. “Give me your hand.”

Tamao hesitated, then gave it. She was sure. “What will I have to do?”

The witch grabbed her fingers roughly and laid it down on the table. “Don’t move.” Then, patiently, she used her ink-coated finger to draw lines across Tamao’s palm. The girl watched with silent confusion as a circle emerged, then was populated with tiny runes and straight lines. She wanted to ask what it was, but didn’t need to.

“This is a wayfinder,” the witch said. “It will lead you where you want to be.”

“And… And where do I want to be?”

Instead of answering, the witch had her stand back and appraised her critically. “We’ll get you out of this childish dress, now. It won’t do at all for the ball.”

“How do I…”

“Take your pick from the yard. There’s things in all colors.”

And with an arrogant wave of her hand she dismissed Tamao. It was a familiar feeling. It was a familiar wave. And a few hours before Tamao _would_ have bent the knee, _would_ have left without a fight.

This time she did, biting her lip but staying exactly where she was. “I will not act before I know what I’m doing. Why should I go to the ball? What is this ball? Please…”

A sigh. Impatient.

“The Labyrinth’s magic is what keeps you here. If you want to leave, you need to break its Heart. Then your friend’s words won’t matter. So get out, pick a dress, and come back here.”

It… it was an answer.

“So the wayfinder will take me to the… The heart?”

“The Heart, yes. The ball is the perfect excuse and shield from the King’s eyes. Just keep your head down, slip away from the party, and find the Heart.”

Tamao furrowed her brow. “And… The ball is…?”

“Now, don’t be daft.” The witch smiled, and it was a dry smile, like dead wood. “It’s back in the Castle, of course.”

Goblin City / Sixth Hour

Everything will be alright, she told herself. Everything will be alright.

Yoh’s words. All she had to hold on to. It would have to do.

Of course, it was only a second cloak, over the real one that hid her shoulders. It draped around her, light as seafoam and just as pretty. Neither the dress nor her capes had any pockets to hide her hands, and the hood drawn over her hair could neither hide her height nor the pallor of her face. She was irremediably, indisputably human, and she feared at every moment that a band of goblins was about to stand in her way.

Whatever the witch had done to her, she was her real height again, and her memories had stopped slipping away from her mind. Or at least she hoped so. Since leaving the witch she had seen a few shadows, small enough to be goblins, behind window panes and crumbling fences. For now they seemed to avoid her – perhaps, if she was lucky, they were as scared of her as she was of them.

It was hard not to walk faster. She forced herself to keep an even stride, her gloved hands crossed in front of her, head held high as the Castle once more came into view.

When she was inside it hadn’t made any sense. She couldn’t even distinguish Castle and battlements. Now she saw it – crested by battlements, but its own entity, tall and twisted and somehow iridescent though it was stone. It was beautiful. An odd sort of beautiful.

The witch had talked her through what she was to do. Enter the Castle with the witch’s invitation, under the guise of being invited to the solstice ball – the Lugnasad Ball – then slip out of the crowd. Find the King’s room. Find the Heart. Break it. No need for a particular weapon. A human’s touch, a human’s word, if she so desired it, if she kept her will arched towards her and Jeanne’s freedom, would be enough.

_Hold on, Jeanne_ , she silently prayed as she climbed the first step that led to the great gates. Her mind kept replaying the scene of Jeanne crawling in the mud, wounded and exhausted. And it was only her second hour. Hours ago, if the witch was to be believed.

On the steps, she joined a group of tall shadows hiding behind masks. Not goblins. Fae, the witch said. She had explained the balls, the distinction between the childish goblins and the people who kept kingdoms like this one existing. Among the latter she could hide. Among the latter emotions would be her undoing.

A gathering of whispers accompanied these shadows. She struggled to focus; Jeanne was in the middle of her thoughts and her stomach was twisting itself into knots. Even when she managed to listen in she couldn’t make out any understandable words.

Finally the group reached the gates. Impossibly long hands, soft and unmarred by any human toil, gave beautiful invitations to a waiting butler. His face was severe; his stone-grey eyes read both words and faces before allowing each individual in. She was the very last one to step forward, and she held out the witch’s invitation, trying not to shake. The man – the boy? He seemed young, maybe her age, though he possessed an arrogance she could only hope to ever emulate.

He did not particularly pause as he read it, and yet she felt like he was scrutinizing it overly much. Could he tell it wasn’t hers? Could he tell she wasn’t one of them? She kept her head down, hiding as much as she could under her hood.

She almost choked when he bent down to salute her. “Lady Bismarck, your presence here is an honor. The King has sorely missed you.” His voice was lined with disdain. Jealousy? When he gave her the carton back, she smelled brine, and struggled not to make a face. “Please, please, come in.”

Tamao did not wait one second. She nodded and forced her shaking legs on, entering the building.


	7. As the pain sweeps through

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m – I’m doing my job. Cleaning the lobby. I have my orders.”

Goblin Castle / Sixth Hour

Instantly, she was on the verge of sick. When she stepped through it the gate had looked normal. Beyond it she had seen a normal hall, with normal guests already chatting in small groups.

But when she set foot inside her eyes registered an entirely different room. One that had her reach for a wall to keep upright.

The only word she found for the room was inverted. The only feeling it gave her was a punch to the stomach.

Because she knew the dark heavy beams protruding from the floor before her, sectioning it into equal rectangles of pale wood. She knew the polished floorboards above her head, the rectangle of tatami with soft, slightly old cushions around the iron kettle. There was the service desk. All this familiar furniture hanging on the ceiling. A few feet ahead, she saw chandeliers rising from the ground with no apparent regard for gravity.

Inverted was the word for both the room and her stomach.

One way or another the… Castle, or the King, had managed to perfectly replicate the lobby of the inn. It felt like a grotesque parody of Funbari Onsen. The same number of cushions, the same color of wood, the same old-fashioned atmosphere. She almost expected Anna to come bursting through door behind the desk.

Once she stopped feeling sick she felt blood rush to her face and she looked about her, expecting everyone to be staring. This was a trap. She had jumped right into a trap. Her heart hammered away at her chest, and the wayfinder pulsed quietly below the glove. Now there would be guards, maybe the witch, surely the King…

But no, there wasn’t. She was seemingly alone. The group that had been with her at the door seemed to have vanished. Behind her, the gates were fully closed, and she was alone.

Gathering her bearings took a few moments, and she felt ashamed it did. She had a mission. This was disturbing, this was clearly meant for her, but she could not afford to waste time being engrossed in the weirdness around. Jeanne was having a much rougher time. To be suddenly alone, in fact, was a great thing. Now instead of having to slip away from the crowd, she could sneak into a hallway and…

“Ah, there you are,” said a gruff voice behind her. Tamao was so surprised she almost tripped on a beam, and she whirled around, apologies flowering at her lips. She held them in, remembering her disguise. She was supposed to be a noble woman… fae… thing.

In front of her stood a stout goblin with thick pinched lips, a broom, and a bucket. “I have been waiting for you for hours! We’re lucky I managed to divert the guests.”

“The… the guests,” Tamao repeated, trying to find a polite way of explaining that she was among these guests.

“The Lugnasad guests, yes! Come on, quickly, we have no time to waste.” He spoke so fast, she couldn’t get a word in. “You will do the floors, the counter, the lights. I can see you have rags on you already. Dear me, being so late is unforgivable. Do not expect to get out before it’s all over.”

Without letting her explain herself, he advanced on her, plopped his tools down and grabbed at her arm. He pushed the glove back, and for a split second she was convinced he would see the glowing rune there. No…

“Ouch!”

He’d twisted the skin back there roughly, and when she snapped her arm away she could tell it would bruise. He was holding something very fine to his eye. Hairs? Had he plucked hairs from her arm?

“Sir, you don’t understand,” she blurted out. “I am a…”

“I don’t want to hear your excuses. Get on with it.”

He deposited the hairs in what looked like a very odd leather pouch and turned his back on her. Tamao tried to follow him, but he reached a very small door on the wall and slammed the door behind him. It did not have a handle.

“Sir, please, you cannot! I am – I need to get to the ball! I cannot help you!”

No answer. Sliding her fingers against the corner of the door, Tamao tried to coax it open, in vain.

That was no reason to panic. There were other doors she could use, after all. She would hide bucket and broom and be on her way. There had to be a closet _somewhere_ , even in this weird castle.

But she couldn’t find any doors. Anywhere.

Tamao nervously walked the length of the lobby. She started at the service desk, turned 180°, and walked to what should rightfully have been the entrance. But there weren’t any gates there. There was no door behind the counter. Now that she had taken her eyes off it, she couldn’t even find the goblin’s hatch. That made no sense! The guests had to have been ushered into another room. There should have been a staff door, at least.

But nothing. She was a prisoner of this room.

Tamao sat down and tried to calm down. At least… at least if there weren’t any doors, nobody could come in and find her. Tamao considered the place, frowning in concentration. It wasn’t exactly abandoned, but she could see that the beams needed dusting, the floors polishing. Not a big clean, but a clean.

With a deep breath she pushed her veil and cape back. There was nothing to it, was there? If she wanted to progress through the Castle, she would need a door to open to her. And that way she wouldn’t get anyone in trouble. Plus, she knew her way around cleaning that lobby. She must have done it hundreds of times. This was her domain.

So she got to it. Because she had in fact no rags – her dress was still the one the witch gave her, beautiful and gauzy – she used the glove that did not conceal her wayfinder. She turned it inside out, apologized in her mind to the witch, put it back on that way and ran it across the thick beams. With the bucket that she discovered full she managed to get the first to a nice clean shine. It was oddly satisfying, in a sense. Back home cleaning the ceiling beams was always a very complicated affair involving ladders and balance and the sense that if you fell you may well break your neck.

Even once she had her degree Yohmei set her to cleaning. He said it was an important task that was not to be delegated, and though Anna and Yoh never had to do it she understood. Making sure what people saw was perfect was crucial to get repeat customers.

Though she had no watch, she estimated the first beam took her half an hour. Not bad, considering the length and her lack of materials; very bad, considering she had a task and the window of opportunity seemed to close fast. Kanna had said she needed to go during the party because the King would be distracted. Once it ended, he would…. Resume looking for her, because she had fled his game and he would surely take offense at that. And then what? He would find her.

Worrying her lip, Tamao stepped over to a second beam and started on it. The image of Jeanne crawling in the dirt itched at her mind. What new horrors could the Labyrinth conjure up for her?

“What a show,” whispered a voice to her right. Tamao froze. Then she looked for its owner, and saw nothing. Had she made it up? Hesitantly, she grabbed onto the broom and stood.

Just then someone kicked her in the back of the knee. She almost fell and only had the broom for balance; she knocked her leg into a beam painfully and let out a cry.

“That’s it, cry,” the voice said. “You’re just good for that, right?”

“I’m sorry?”

She turned to face her assailant and saw it this time – below her feet. Behind the translucent paneling she saw movement. And there opened an eye: big, swirling, aquamarine.

Suddenly it looked very fragile. Tamao had never been afraid of falling through the ceiling back in the inn – but she had never tried to put her hand through it, either. Now, to think maybe standing on it wasn’t a great idea…

“Who are you,” she asked, looking around for more solid ‘ground’. “I’m – I’m doing my job. Cleaning the lobby. I have my orders.”

More whispers, more eyes. Now there were stifled laughs, too.

“This dress,” one blurted. “You look like the ugly duckling who’s stolen the swan’s coat. You really think the King will fall for that? Everyone can see you’re just pretending. That’s how you got stuck here, ain’t it?”

 _Something_ tugged at her hair and Tamao almost screamed. In her panic she kicked the bucket, and half of it sloshed over her dress and her stockings. The water was freezing cold.

“And these shoes!”

“You’ll break the ceiling! How did you pick these?”

She hadn’t, she wanted to say. The witch had. She couldn’t say that.

“Maybe Jeanne could pull these off. Or Anna.”

Tamao froze. Suddenly the cold wetness on her legs and her bruised knee had stopped mattering.

“How do you know…?”

“You think you can compare?”

“You think you’re on their level?”

“Yoh definitely sees the difference. And you can bet Jeanne does, too.”

“Be quiet!” Through her shock she felt tears spring to her eyes. How did they know these names? How did they know which strings to pull to make her choke?

“Why do you think she refuses to let Lyserg know?”

“She pretends so she won’t hurt your feelings.”

“You’re her charity case. Once you’re back in Japan she’ll be so relieved! Though she’ll have to find another lost puppy to dote over.”

“Be quiet,” she repeated, almost pleading, as she stood back up, rigidly. She tried to look away from the shadows at her feet, but more were gathering in the walls. She was surrounded.

“She just can’t wait for the drama program to be over.”

“For her to be done with you.”

“Seems she got tired of you early, hasn’t she?”

“She did send you here.”

“She didn’t know,” Tamao cut in, sharply. “Please, just be quiet.”

“You sure? She opened that book so fast.”

“Chose the scenes.”

“Chose the roles.”

Tamao sucked in a breath.

“She got rid of you.”

“She’s too stubborn by half but this was the best thing that could have happened. When she loses she’ll just go back and be happy. So happy!”

“That’s not true,” she opposed, and her voice shook even as she said the words. “She Challenged the King for me. She won’t lose. We won’t be separated.”

The voices came from everywhere now, so loud and so many that they spoke over each other. Grabbing onto the half-empty bucket and her broom, she backed away towards the center of the room. As far as she could from any given wall, though she could do nothing about the shadows congregating below her feet.

“And even if you’re right? You think she’d fight for you over there? You think she’d tell daddy dearest she wants to be with you? Have you _seen_ him?”

“She loves him.”

“She loves him so much.”

“She has such a bright future.”

“It would be such a shame.”

“She doesn’t love you enough by half.”

“Shut up!”

She had yelled. Finally, finally, she got silence. Her hands were clutching the broom so tight she was afraid it would splinter before her eyes. In these blessed seconds of silence she took a few deep breaths. Wiped angrily at the tears that had escaped her eyes.

This was a distraction. She was supposed to be cleaning this room. If she did, they would give her a door, and she would be allowed to leave. Even if the voices came back, she would ignore them. She was good at ignoring voices, wasn’t she?

“All you’re good for,” they hissed when she put the bucket down on another beam. “You took to this so fast. You’d never thought you’d amount to more, did you?”

“Not even that good. Look.”

Rather than stay where she’d put it, the bucket fell right through her fingers and up at the ‘ground’ several feet above her. It exploded on impact, and water spread on the tatamis, leaving a large, darkened stain.

Tamao stared at it blankly. She couldn’t sponge this one up. She didn’t have a mop, and she couldn’t get to it. Just to say she tried, even though success and failure were equally frightening, she tried to jump towards it.

She just fell back on the beams and almost twisted her ankle. Now… now what was she supposed to do? She still had no doors, and no way of cleaning up the mess. And…

The dark shadows dancing behind the wood paneling seemed closer, suddenly. Tamao put the broom in between them and her.

“Leave me alone,” she demanded, in the most commanding voice she could muster. “I have work to do.”

“Oh, do you?”

Did she? It was hard to focus on much with their whispers in her ears. Clutching her hands over each other on the broom, fingers clasped across the wayfinder, she waited for peace.

“Whose work will you do,” came the whispers, as if from afar, “whose burden will you carry?”

They were fading. Surely waiting for her to move. To make more mistakes. Tamao tried not to go through their words, not to look for truth where there was only taunting. Jeanne was running the Labyrinth wounded, ragged, trying to find her. Who cared about the real world now? Who cared about Marco Maxwell, Ph.D., intimidating as he was?

She couldn’t. She couldn’t afford this. She needed to clean. To achieve something, something easy, accessible, something she _could_ do without too much trouble. That would keep her from shaking loose. From bursting into tears.

The service desk. That was it. With the broom she could just reach it, and sweep it. It would be something.

Eyes closed, using her broom to navigate the beams, she made her way to it. The voices were still silent. Only when she felt the wall before her did she open her eyes. There was the desk there, almost right below her, attainable. Dusty.

Standing on the tip of her toes, leaning on the wall, she slowly drew the broom against the wooden surface. The dust came off easy, and followed her lead behind the counter, leaving gleaming wood and so, so much relief.

She couldn’t explain it. There, leaning on the wall with a broom hanging by her fingertips, she started laughing.

She was standing in a thing of gauze and hells on top of what for all intents and purposes looked like a Japanese ceiling, with poor approximations of cleaning products, and now voices that needled her from the walls. Voices that took shape to scare her off and hurt her. Voices!

She negligently let go of her broom and watched it crash on the ground, out of reach above her. She was still laughing, even as the whispers grew louder and the darkness darker.

Once she was out of laughter, she bared her teeth.

“Let me through. Or else.”

“We know who you are,” the voices said. “We have nothing to fear from you.”

“You do,” she corrected. Then, standing to her full height, she stared them down. “I am the Goblin City’s one and only princess. I have an invitation to the Lugnasad celebrations. I do not appreciate your pranks and I demand to be led to the King immediately.”

For a moment, the walls stood still, pitch black and frozen. Tamao did not breathe. The chatter had fallen away, as if these words were the only ones she needed to say. When she thought they would start again she raised a finger, the way she had seen Anna do. “Not a word.”

And so there wasn’t. instead, the darkness folded into a painting framed in gold. It depicted a ballroom the likes of those romance movies Jeanne so loved to sleep through, with dames in furs and men in heels, with feasts of exotic food and beautiful music. Tamao refused to wonder at it, refused to look for faces in the crowd. Instead, she drew her hood back over her head, gathered her soaked skirts and walked right through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mokumokuren spirits are a type of Japanese yôkai who live in torn paper sliding walls and in floor mats. Their name means "many eyes" or "continuous eyes". Usual fare for haunted houses! The only way to get rid of them is usually to patch up the holes and tears in the paper. They are usually harmless! Might have been an invention of Toriyama Sekien. Cool stuff.


	8. Makes no sense for you

Ballroom / Seventh Hour

The painting felt like a wall of water that wasn’t wet. She felt it when she went through, but there was no evidence afterwards; her skirts were now dry, and she no longer felt the hurt in her knee.

It was the painting, either the way through or its subject, because now she was in. The most comforting thing about this room was that ceiling here was ceiling and floor here was floor, and for a second all was right in her heart.

This was the crowd the witch had told her to expect. These were the ladies in beautiful though tired floor-length gowns, these were the lords in costumes not unlike that of the boy’s. They all wore masks, either in plaster or in metal, and not one inch of skin was ever showing.

Fae, the witch had said, were vain, and manipulative, and dangerous. The least they saw of each other, and the least they saw of her, the better. She kept her hood low on her forehead as she stepped up, taking a few steps into the crowd. She was not meant to stay here; she had a mission.

First, locate the exits. Get acquainted with your surroundings. So she did, even though nothing felt quite right: neither the dull gold of the ceilings, the staggering of the music, the evanescence of the walls when she tried to look for them.

No doubt another illusion, no better than the fake lobby. She couldn’t trust anything she saw there, not even the clock on the wall. Not that she could read it.

As she stepped through the crowd it bloomed in giggles and hushed whispers. At first she thought it was the shadows again, felt her heart squeeze and falter, but it wasn’t. Just the apparently real noble ilk of the fae around her. She did not look at them; she wanted to go at this methodically. To enter this room she’d gone through a wall; if she followed it she would find the exits.

The whispers around her took a turn, and she knew they were now about her. She was used to it by now; and these whispers were a lot less cutting than the shadows’, because she couldn’t understand the language. When she moved from Japan to France things had been like this, and she’d managed for years in France, enough to almost receive a Master’s to hang under her Japanese degree. She could manage an evening.

She was doing her best not to look at the crowd when a familiar face caught hers. Frowning, she turned her head, trying to locate the glimmer of acquaintance. It had slipped away; without thinking she moved from the wall and in between dancers. They pretended to go back to the music, to forget about her entirely, and though she felt their eyes linger she ignored them. All that mattered was that one face. She recognized the shade of the hair, the size, the…

Yoh, it was Yoh she’d seen, she was sure of it. Yoh was here, one way or another he had found her. She saw him again, back to her, in between dancers. His hair was long, swept in a ponytail. Then he was on the other end of the dance floor, laughing, and it was his voice.

Very quickly she lost all sense of direction. There, against the wall, holding a glass. No, in the middle of the room, next to Jeanne who was dancing.

Instantly Tamao was transported back to the party.

She didn’t like parties. Too loud, too many people, too many eyes, just like here. And yet at this party Jeanne took her to, she had enjoyed herself. She had enjoyed Jeanne drawing her to the floor, showing her how to move. Had finally felt comfortable enough to have fun dancing in public, because Jeanne was here, because Jeanne was beautiful and radiant.

She was magnetized by the sight of Jeanne’s back, the cascade of her white hair slicing her dark dress into impossible slits. Here in the painting she moved closer, forgetting Yoh, forgetting caution, common sense, forgot, forgot…

Jeanne turned back towards her. She was smiling, and her smile reached her ears, flaps of skin hanging loose on the flesh of her cheeks. Tamao saw the roots of her teeth. Her eyes were just as terrifying: someone had glued her eyelids to her brows, and the whites of her red eyes were speckled with broken blood vessels.

Tamao swallowed a scream and backed away in a hurry, stumbling through the thick of the crowd until she no longer felt anyone pressing around her. She couldn’t breathe. This wasn’t Jeanne. This wasn’t her. This was –

Then she realized the reason she was no longer fighting through a crowd was because it had parted to create a nigh-perfect empty circle in the middle of the ballroom, and she was now inside of that circle.

Immediately it felt wrong, and she tried to go back between the courtiers, but they stood thick now, forming a living wall that would not open for her. She tried to attract the attention of the person blocking her path, to ask, to beg for the right of passage; nothing worked. The best she could do was to press herself against the wall, as if she were part of it. She still stuck out, like a sore thumb, or a knife left blade out in a kitchen block.

The crowd hushed, and Tamao felt dozens, maybe hundreds of eyes stare right at her. Wherever she looked, she found masks, gazes. They strangled her without touching, piled on lacquered spite in her lungs. It took her a moment to stop drowning, to see what needed to be seen.

They were not, actually, staring at her. They were staring beyond her, beside her, at what was in the circle she was in. So, she looked, too. And she saw him. She saw Yoh.

But it wasn’t Yoh. Yoh’s hair, Yoh’s height, Yoh’s smile, all the things she had recognized. Except in so many ways he wasn’t. His hair was too long, his smile that of a crow, and there was something generally off about him. His features were too sharp, etched as if through calligraphy onto the world, and his mask only intensified the sensation. He wore the same kind of attire everyone else here did, except his was clearly a little bit… more. More expensive, more refined, just overall _more_. It was dark, and feathery, hard to focus on for very long. He had a cane, a black thing.

She still could not breathe right. It was like the inn lobby room, except even more. The feeling was more precise, crystallized, and it was thus: looking at this man was looking at her bedroom, except everything had been moved slightly to the left. Upside-down.

Cold sweat gathered in the small of her back, and Not-Yoh struck the ground with his cane. As if bursting forth from the impact, something red flashed beside him, and it was a woman.

It was woman felt more accurate. She wore a long gown so red it bled onto stocky legs and in between her shoulders. There was a mask on her face, in metal so thin it hid almost nothing. She was odd purely for that reason: among the masks, apart from Tamao, she was the only one nigh unmasked. Though she wasn’t, she looked naked.

Tamao realized with a wheeze that she must look exactly the same.

The man who was not Yoh hit the ground with his cane a second time, and the light warped around them. He hit the ground again, and again, and soon it wasn’t random hits but a regular rhythm he kept on the ground. Only his arm moved; the rest of him was deadly still, making him the axis around which everything else moved. One more time he hit the ground, and this time the woman began to move.

Every blow had her move once, in a short burst, almost like a step. She turned around the room, brushing against every part of the living wall and causing a delighted cheer.

Tamao was not cheering. Her breath left her chest when she remembered _she_ wasn’t part of the wall. She was, ever-so-slightly, on the inside of the circle. And, also, surrounded by thick and strange bodies that did not let her move at all. Her only way of avoiding the dancer bumping bodily into her would have been to inch backwards right in front of the crow man, or to somehow slip between him and his woman, to go beg for mercy from other masks, at another spot on the breathing wall.

Just as she was about to faint the dancer stopped. She was facing a mask of the crowd, body leaning forward like she was about to lunge at them. For a moment all held still; then the crow’s music started again, and sped up, and up, and up. It drew the attention of the woman in red, who moved back through sharp and willful bursts. There was some Anna in her, behind her long black braids and the very different complexion. Watching her, Tamao wondered if she would hit the crow once he was in her reach. There was violence in the way she moved. Intent to hurt.

She did not hit him; when their bodies grew close he reached out and grabbed her leg. When he raised it to his hip and to him the dancer embraced him like a lover. Mask and face brushed against each other; the girl’s metal adornment glowed against her skin, as if made of fire.

They were still dancing, and the movement, the brutality of it, here was its nature: fire.

He let go of her leg, and she untwined her body from his, twisting to face him. Slowly she moved around him, in a maddening circle, foreshadowing attacks and bouts of violence that always seemed to stop right before they connected. It was difficult to say whether they were still dancing or if the game changed; the music continued, and they followed it, but the woman’s face was contorting more and more into hatred.

As the music sped up it became inexorable. Everything warped around it, the lights, the chests of the raptured audience, the dancer. Everything was twisting, bending towards the man at the center of the room. Tamao herself, in spite of her screaming lungs, was struggling not to run up to him. Her mind was begging the dancer to run away, to break the spell, somehow. It seemed clear to her something tragic was unfolding before her eyes, and she could do nothing to stop it.

Indeed the dancer came to face him again, stepping in between him and Tamao. She had no way to know, but Tamao felt the pressure on her limbs lessen, and she was finally able to breathe. She still couldn’t take her eyes off him, or begin to understand what was happening around her. The crowd was silently drinking in the scene. Vampires, she couldn’t help but think. Leeches.

In what had to be an immense effort the dancer tried to separate from the crowd, to finally move away. She threw her whole body towards the crowd, towards Tamao. Their eyes met. Tamao saw fright behind the red woman’s smile.

The dancer had taken two steps to freedom when the cane fell on her shoulder. It was so brutal Tamao almost screamed at the impact, and yet the dancer did not even flinch. There was no admission of pain, or rather no admission of life. It felt rather like she were petrified than like she wasn’t hurt. She was more Anna than ever, like this.

It was hard not to admire this level of control.

The man moved again. His steps were deceptively slow, against the flow of the _still ongoing_ music, as he moved closer to her. His cane slid forward and down, like a belt across the red woman’s chest, restraining her against him.

She was still facing Tamao and Tamao watched her features go lake-still. Gone the fear, gone the near-madness that shook Tamao so much. She did not react when the crow wrapped himself around her, arms encircling her waist. She did not seem to even hear the music.

Over her shoulder, the crow eyed her neck, the side of her face, the nose of her flimsy mask, and then he stared. Right. At. Tamao.

Then, with a grotesque flourish, he tugged on his cane, and the dancer exploded in blood-red petals. Tamao was too shocked to scream. She just stared as the black mask fell slowly to the floor. There was no blood, no gore. Just wilting petals that looked oddly like playing cards, and the eyes of the crow, right on her.

He moved towards the crowd, walking right over what had been his dancing partner, and offered Tamao his hand.

“Now,” and he was the first one in this room she understood, “will you dance with me?”

Ballroom / Eigth Hour

There was no denying him. Tamao, mouth dry, took the offered hand and looked into the face of the monster. He bowed to her, feathers black as midnight and speckled with diamonds. Then he straightened, discarded his cane with a flourish into the waiting arms of the crowd, and drew her closer.

He held one hand in his, and the other he placed on her waist, which left only his shoulder to rest hers in a way that felt natural. It was the branded hand, and she felt a spark as she touched him. If he sensed it, he did not mention anything. Which left her with the bigger problem: Tamao knew very little about dancing. She tried to say as much.

“S-sir, my Lord…”

“Yes?”

The mask did not move. It gave echoes to his voice, like it came from far away. His thumb made the skin of her palm throb, and she thought of the sigil under her glove, and swallowed.

“I do not… I must confess… I am a poor dancer.”

He chuckled softly, too softly to be heard. “Not to worry. I very much intend to lead.”

Her heart fluttered like a wild thing in a cage, and Tamao was left silenced. She was terrified. It had to be terror, right? Her own heart fluttering at the thought of being discovered. Such a terrible betrayal it would be otherwise.

She had to find a way to run. She had to, right away, because otherwise she would end up like the red woman, lacerated in red ribbons across the floor.

“I, I do not know your name,” she breathed as he started to move them across the floor.

“Few people do,” he replied placidly. His eyes gleamed like pearls. “I have many. _Lord of Feathers. Conqueror of the Hunt. Goblin King_.”

None of it made sense to Tamao. She wet her lips.

“How should I call you, then?”

The words had spilled unbidden off her lips. This felt bold. Too bold? She couldn’t think. Her mind was in a haze.

He tilted his masked head, the feathers catching ablaze in the light of the chandeliers. He seemed to be considering his answer to her very carefully.

“You may call me Hao,” he conceded in a whisper. “What about you? May I have the name of my charming partner?”

Tamao struggled to breathe properly as they glided across the floor like on a cloud. He was right: it did not matter she knew nothing about dancing. He negotiated each and every step masterfully, his eyes somehow only on her as they avoided the other couples and groups around them. They weren’t the only ones dancing anymore, Tamao discovered. The music had softened; it no longer had that dangerous tint. No, the danger had fled into the eyes of the crow before her, and they were set on hers.

“Your name, precious,” he repeated.

And, foolishly, she gave it to him.

“T-Tamao. I’m – the witch sent me,” she added, belatedly remembering her cover story.

She expected him to nod, to swallow the lie. Instead he threw his head back and laughed. It was not a pretty sound; it echoed from the walls, the ceiling, the other masks all around. Tamao flushed, growing rigid and awkward in his arms. “S-sir?”

“I told you to call me Hao, precious,” he purred, twirling her effortlessly.

“Hao,” she said obediently. “Why…?”

He tilted his head, a bird-like movement that was only a pretense of innocence. “Why what?”

“Why did you laugh at me?”

Tamao swallowed. She wasn’t sure what to say, how to get out of there. To stay under his full attention was draining. When she was with Jeanne it was never like this; Jeanne loved bright and true, for sure, but she thrust her attention outwards. She would talk for hours about the latest opera or play she had seen, or that exercise she had excelled at. All the while she would be holding Tamao’s hand, relaxing next to each other, and listening to her, asking for her opinion, asking for her own stories. But Jeanne never turned the full intensity of her gaze on her. Perhaps she did not dare. Which was outlandish because Jeanne was too brave for her own good.

Hao was still staring at her, and they were still dancing. How Tamao wished she had Jeanne’s courage. She would already have pushed him away, ran off in the crowd.

Instead, wetting her dry lips, she asked again, “why did you laugh at me?”

Hao’s head stayed tilted, full of inhuman curiosity. “It is always pretty,” he said, leaning down until somehow naked lips grazed her ear, “when a human tries to lie.”

Tamao froze, once more a mere plaster puppet being waltzed around, but there was no violence, no sudden unmasking. He straightened up, as if he hadn’t said anything. Her heart was a drum in her ears.

“Tell me, young envoy of the witch,” he said. “What is it you are looking for?”

Tamao confusedly thought of the Heart she was supposed to be looking for, of her still-throbbing hand. There was no way this man would aid her if he knew the truth. For some reason he had let her lie slide, but she wasn’t about to reveal her hand.

“I am afraid I do not follow, my Lord.”

“Call me Hao, Tamao,” he demanded.

“Hao,” came out of her lips, like an echo.

“Tell me what you are looking for.”

“Why?” The sharpness of her answer made her cringe. She looked for inspiration, tried her plays, or rather Jeanne’s. Jeanne’s were always very flowery, the right kind of ornate for this gilded ballroom. “Cannot one keep one’s secrets in one’s breast, like a precious armor?”

He smiled, and she felt all strength in her hands fade. “One could, but one would be misguided indeed. For I am in the business of dreams, and I will make yours come true. You only need say them.”

Tamao’s mouth went dry. This… this was a proposal. Undeniably so.

Around them the fineries suddenly seemed to spring to life; the other dancers no longer seemed to be rotting behind their elaborate masks; the curtains gained color and lustre; Tamao could even see flowers blooming around the room.

“Well?”

She blinked desperately hard, trying to escape the dark gaze levelled at her through the mask. She had longed for so long to have these eyes on her, to have him offer her sweet nothings. But it wasn’t him. It wasn’t Yoh.

“I want to get out of here,” she whispered, and suddenly they were.

The ballroom faded, replaced by a desolate platform. Crenellations surrounded them, each with its own stone face watching them, but he didn’t look. His eyes were focused entirely on her, just her, as if trying to figure out a puzzle. Working out a problem that made up her very essence.

"Would you rather this, Tamao," he asked softly, and Tamao shivered. The moment he said her name, her very soul seemed to rise to answer. To the point she almost forgot his question. Just like when the boy asked her things and she immediately replied.

Behind him the sky warped in terrible swirls of purple, green, black. A storm was cracking above them, and yet there was no rain. No rain at all.

Their dancing drew them to the battlements, and Tamao realized they were on top of a tower. The sheer drop made her shiver once more. He led the dance thoroughly, completely. If he pushed her, if he let go, if...

"You are not answering," he whispered, voice soothing and sizzling at the very same time.

She should not answer. Every breath she gave him was a little more of her soul given to his.

"Answer me, Tamao," he repeated softly, and her mouth opened against her best wishes.

"This is not any more real. Where are we?"

His smile froze and he pushed her back towards the center of the platform. There was neither hatch nor staircases to ascend, that was what tipped her off.

"I cannot read you," he hissed. "Your soul dreams of ballrooms and embraces, I give them to you, you don’t want them. I darken the picture to let you be the heroine of our little tale, but you are not afraid. What do you need? And if you say the word ‘real’..."

The threat hung in between them. Tamao had opened her mouth, but she closed it. It only angered him further, and he marched on her, taking hold of her chin.

"Why refuse your dreams? Answer me, Tamao."

And just like that she did. "I don’t know what you want to do with them. I am afraid you would twist them to suit your own purposes." The words surprised her almost more than him. What was this? That wasn’t why she refused his advances, surely not. She refused because he was fey, and because she never wanted him in the first place, she wanted... She wished... she had hoped that Yoh...

He must have seen the spark in her gaze. "You doubt _my_ existence," he realized. "Because you have slightly tweaked my appearance so I would look like your beloved boy, you think me impotent and illusory?"

Her mouth went dry. The way he pronounced _impotent_ was everything but. "I didn’t..."

"Oh yes, I think you did."

He leaned in towards her, and without him having to say any words Tamao found her hands grabbing into his coat, itching with excitement. It was full of warm, fluffy feathers, begging for her to sink into them. Tamao knew better than to trust the thought, but it floated there behind her eyes. The King wanted just that, she could tell.

She hadn’t meant to do that, she didn’t want her hands into his coat, their faces so close to each other, their breaths mingling into one...

"I could prove to you that I exist," the Goblin King whispered. "Tell me, Tamao, would you like that?"

In spite of herself, she opened her mouth, felt it start to answer –

Then he moved back as if singed, shock dawning on his face. A golden spray appeared from his chest and seemingly held there in the air in between them. His clothes ripped and he backed up, a hand coming to cover what must have been a wound. A wounded wolf’s howl tore out of his chest and into hers, and she fell to her knees, howling too. The pain felt real. Was she the one stabbed?

When she raised her head next, he was nowhere to be seen. The storm broke on the far edge of her vision.

She was alone on the tower.


	9. You've run so far

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Have you never been told that you shouldn’t let them touch you?”

The Mugwort Wastes / Fifth Hour

“Thank you for not burning me.”

The words did not reach her right away. Jeanne had tripped and fallen in the mud, on her knees under the bleak lavender sky, like a felled tree in front of her failure. Time stretched in odd ways. She had failed. Fully, utterly failed. What else could this mean? This empty space with no sign of life or labyrinthine construction?

The Goblin King had set the Challenge, given her the key, and she ran away. She left Tamao to her fate. She failed, and now she was lost, in the middle of nowhere.

“This is not fair,” she whispered. Because she had not meant to run away. She had thought herself smart! She thought she had seen the obvious answer and been smart not to offer it up immediately. She thought she was smart enough to find the hidden clues, the noble way out, harder to find but moral to take.

And now she was here.

Her tears dried up before she realized she had cried. She knew she must have because her cheeks burned. Or was that the rain? Icy sheets of black rain fell over her, tearing into her skin. Perhaps, all things considered, dying against a wall at the entrance of the Labyrinth wasn’t the worst fate for one like her. At least it was over. At least it wasn’t this.

“Thank you for sparing me,” the voice repeated, and Jeanne finally moved, bringing her numb hands in front of her face. She was still clutching her key. The creature inside, the… the elf… it was very tiny. Its head looked too big for its body, and its eyes were globous, froggish. Even then, it seemed to be too big for its prison. Its limbs were touching the key walls, and it stood hunched. Poor thing.

He must have seen her eyes wander back to the skies, because he threw his arms around to keep her attention. Even that was too much for the prison; she saw him twist his arms painfully.

“Hey, hey, it’s no problem! Not the end of the world! I promise, we can make it work!”

“Make what work?” She stared, unable to understand why her voice was so raspy. Had she screamed for Tamao for so very long?

“Do you mean,” she hesitated, “I can still get to the Castle? We’re in the middle of nowhere!”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” he said, looking very confused very suddenly. “I do not live in the Castle.”

The urge to throw the key away spiked within her. That… that thing was just meant to make her lose even more time. Through it the Goblin King himself was mocking her.

“But it’s not the end of the world,” the elf blurted out, maybe noticing the steel glint in her eye. “I’m sure we can find a nice quiet place to live. Then you’ll cook, and I’ll help out, and we can make an honest living!”

Jeanne blinked. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about what we do now! It’s not like the King will come all the way over here and bother us. He’s got a pretty lady in the Castle, he’s set for life!”

“What?” Jeanne rose like she’d been bitten. “I won’t leave Tamao to him! I want to find her and get her back! I won’t stay here!”

The elf sighed, as if to express how unreasonable she was. “I just don’t think that’s worth it. It’s a long way, and we’ll tire out and die before we even see the Labyrinth again. Are you sure you don’t want a nice house out here? Mud makes for nice bricks.”

“You’re horrible!”

“No, I’m Tokagerôh. Can you, please? Call me Tokagerôh? What is your name?”

Fighting the urge to throw him as far away she could, Jeanne simply released the tension in her arm and stood straight. Even if this elf was infuriating, he could prove useful yet. To deliberately leave a key in a world of doors and traps seemed like a really bad idea.

So she decided to keep him. That did not help her decide where to go. It was raining something rude; seeing anything was a task all on its own. Her outrage made her want to walk to persevere, to _try_ , for Tamao. She hadn’t meant to forfeit. Hadn’t, forfeited. She wanted one more shot, and she would get it. Alright, she’d been led back out of the Labyrinth. It did not mean she couldn’t get back in. But she did not know how to even get to the doors. Everything was equally dark, bleak, and unyielding.

She had to move, so she just picked a direction and took a step in the dark. Then another. Then she was gone, walking through the rain that battered her cheeks. Her eyes narrowed to slits. There was nothing to navigate from, no stars in the sky, no watch on her wrist, no light in the far reaches of the muddy wastes. She was alone in the universe, against all logics and probability.

A familiar thought came to her. _This time, hypothermia is inevitable_. Since the Goblin King – Hao – had touched them, her clothes seemed to be protected, even warm. But her face was bare, and the water ran through her locks and into her collar, closing cold talons around her shoulders.

Protests rose from the key at regular intervals, but she ignored them. She had trust her hands around her chest to keep them out of the rain, and drawing them out was a risk she couldn’t take. No, the horrid little elf would have to wait until she had shelter.

Nothing here was as it should be. Her feet kept slipping and she was afraid of falling. Her lungs were protesting already, and she despaired at her obvious failings. Tamao would be so much better at this. Tamao would be marching ahead, calling to make sure she followed, to make sure Jeanne’s spirits were still up. It helped to picture her there, to keep her at the forefront of her mind. The real Tamao with her, inside her, chased the ghosts away.

And the real Tamao was…

The real Tamao was the shy girl who’d let her sit next to her that first day. Who’d waited until the end of her long introductory speech before admitting that her French was not great and she needed to slow down. Tamao asked her to speak in her stead, and whispered great ideas during workshop. She was the brilliant one, and the silent one.

The real Tamao stood a full head higher than most of the youth in the program, was four year older than her and showed it. She taught her how to make her own food.

Just so they could share.

How had she ever enjoyed her existence before Tamao?

Tamao was so much more than words could capture. Walks in the park. Comfort shared in words and touches. Soft confessions during makeshift pajama parties on Jeanne’s floors.

Tamao had been her partner in every practical after the first had gone awfully awry. She never let her down during trust exercises. During a romantic scene, Tamao was the one who’d started sputtering and losing her French. Was it so impossible, so unthinkable, that they should be…

Ah, who was she kidding? Tamao was flushed, but Jeanne would have been at a complete loss if it hadn’t been play-acting. The words themselves were foreign, out of her reach. They weren’t, of course. Their friendship included hugs and feather touches and it was a friendship.

_So then, why send her to the Goblins?_

The voice of the King in her ear, a mocking cackle. The very idea of Tamao in his grasp made her chest clench painfully in a feeling she couldn’t pinpoint. What would he do to her? What monster would he turn her into? And if he didn’t, what would they become, when she failed and was sent to the world above alone?

_Why give her away if you wanted her?_

But she _hadn’t_ given her away. She didn’t know the words had power. She was _playing a role_. Tamao was her audience, her precious friend pretending with her. She wasn’t a horrible younger brother that Jeanne wanted to get rid of. It wasn’t fair. She had been trying to share with Tamao her love of the book, of the fantasy contained within. She had started with the beginning so that Tamao would learn about Sarah, and Jareth.

Bitterly she huffed in the rain. She had been playing Sarah. It followed Tamao would have played Jareth – not a choice she’d made consciously, but now she felt robbed. Tamao who was so shy – who never took anything you didn’t force her to take, most of the time – Tamao would have bloomed like a flower with such a role. Jareth could have taught her so much.

The sudden onset of jealousy almost forced her to her knees. Jareth didn’t exist, but Hao did. Hao had Tamao and she remembered that all the time the fabled Goblin King didn’t spend needling his Challenger he spent with Toby, the stolen brother. What did Hao say to Tamao? What did Tamao say to him?

Would she ever see either of them again?

Jeanne walked still. Blind, slipping through the mud, she walked, and her thoughts melted away. The rain covered the elf’s words, covered the ache in her bones. All that counted was the step she was taking and the one that followed, and the one that followed, and the one that followed

and the one that followed

and the one that followed.

And then, at the end of the infinite walk through the dark, the rain stopped. It took her a few moments to realize it, so taken she was with her feet and the way they moved, one after the other.

Without the crackling of thunder, though, the elf managed to draw her out of her haze.

“There, there, look!”

She blinked and did not stop immediately. The cycle of her feet moving in unison had anchored itself too deeply in her mind. She did raise her head, however, ignoring the claws of cold across her back, and looked for what he’d been talking about. She immediately saw it, a tall, shimmering wall in front of her.

It cut through the immensity of nothing like a knife. Its impossible curve kept the rain from her head, like a supernatural awning; she could see the water bounce off its iridescent surface. And, on the other side…

On the other side was summer. There were golden fields spreading endlessly before her, more vivid than she had ever seen before. And from them rose a town with red stone walls.

It did not have a castle, but it was too well-kept to be abandoned. She had done it. She had walked beyond the nothing.

“I did it,” she said, out loud, to make sure she heard.

Fatigue welled up in her like a flood. Could she knock on one of these doors? Ask for a towel? Maybe a place to rest? Maybe they’d be able to help her. Maybe they’d have something for her sore, soaked feet. Maybe…

She fell head over heels into the bubble of summer and lost consciousness.

Sunstone Town / Seventh Hour

She awoke somewhere else.

She expected to be lying on the ground, head in the grass or in the mud. Maybe dead. In truth it felt like she should have been, after all of this.

Instead she woke up in a cocoon of warmth, behind a window framed by extremely detailed lace curtains. Shapes of pumpkins and cauldrons and witches on brooms that never really solidified; when she looked again it all looked abstract and nondescript. From far away came some vague noise that her addled mind could not identify.

Her mouth felt like death as she sat up.

“Ah, you’re awake! I thought you would sleep through all of your hours,” said a familiar voice next to her ear. Jeanne tensed though she did not jump, her senses frightened into alertness.

She still wore the mud-caked princely clothes, though someone had taken her cape – how? It had no fastenings! – and placed it on a chair next to the bed. Someone – the same, no doubt – had taken the key from her hand and propped it on the cape. They had drawn a thing of lace through its handle. She couldn’t see him from that distance, but she heard the annoying elf alright.

“Tokagerôh?”

“Yes, that’s the name! Now you must rise. We must away!”

Jeanne did stand. Her legs felt wobbly, but they would have to do.

“Did you see who brought me here? I remember falling into the bubble, but…”

“Yes!” He was jittery. Nervous. “They came in bands from the fields. Children. Little wee things, with teeth and torches. If I were you I would not stay.”

“What? Why? I mean we won’t stay, we have to go, but…”

“I have seen things. Grave, terrible things! Too many legs. Their smiles do me grieve.”

“Do you have to talk like this?”

“I don’t see what you mean.”

Exactly as annoying as before. Jeanne shook her head.

“Well, alright. I do need to talk to them. They were nice enough to bring me here, and they live here. They must know where the Castle is.”

“They might not, and…”

“I know what you think, and I have elected to ignore it,” she said dryly. Making her way to her things on slightly-better legs, she slipped the ribbon around her wrist and the cape on her shoulders. It was dry again, and warm. At least there was that. She was warm.

Whatever Tokagerôh said, she would thank these people. They had found a ribbon for her key, and a bed for her body when they found her dying outside. It was a lot of pain to go through for a stranger.

Now rested and free of pain, which was a wonder on its own, Jeanne made her way to the front door and left the house. Even outside the air was warm, the wind soft on her skin. Everything felt welcoming, the complete opposite of the Labyrinth. Who wouldn’t choose to live here, given the chance?

She made her way along a street peppered with little houses. Each one was red stone and creeping wisteria, a charming isle lost in time. Beyond them she could see the fields, gently bending under the tender breeze. Bending just enough to reveal strange silhouettes.

From where she stood she couldn’t make out much of them, except that they were little dots in dark clothes, wreathed in flames.

They had brought her to their village. They couldn’t bear her any ill will. And they looked to be so curious! She started making her way towards them, ignoring Tokagerôh’s protests. Jeanne felt a rebound of hope. They would point her in the right direction, she just knew. And thanking them – well that was just being polite. That quality seemed in serious shortage around here.

On the wind came a song that she divined coming from this odd assembly of flame children. It remained indistinct for a moment, and then took shape, and words, growing more and more precise as the flames softened to become long, flowing red hair. Jeanne walked towards them still, not quite sure of what she saw. Then they split into two groups, and one came her way. It was far too late to hide, and she did not feel the need.

“ _Are you a witch or are you a fairy? Or are you the wife of Michael Cleary?”_

The words made precious little sense to Jeanne, but seeing her seemingly animated them, and an excited buzz rose from their ranks. They sped up, and Jeanne froze when she realized what was wrong. It wasn’t flames on their heads, and it wasn’t hair like she’d thought. It was something entirely different.

All of the children had pumpkins on their heads. Carved pumpkins. A Halloween prank? They did not seem to all have the right number of eyes; some did not have mouths. The latter did not make sound.

“You are awake,” said one of those who had mouths. Jeanne didn’t reply, didn’t dare point out the obvious. What were these things?

“You are awake! Right on time, right on time?”

There was laughter, but Jeanne could not bear to partake. “Right on time for what? I – I am very sorry, I can’t stay. Someone is waiting for me.”

“Oh, we know,” the little beings chorused. Pumpkin teeth showed, orange and rotting. “But you can’t leave yet!”

“Why?”

“Because of the storm,” they said, like it was obvious. “The storm in the wastes is at its strongest. It would tear out your teeth.”

“And your veins!”

“And… I don’t have anything else,” one of the others said.

Jeanne had to fight to stay where she stood. “I cannot wait. I only have thirteen hours,” she said nervously. She could hear the elf already, saying _Told you so_ and _You can’t trust what your eyes tell you_.

“Oh, that’s fine! You haven’t slept that long,” another pumpkin head said. “Come now! The bread is almost done!”

She was too confused, and privately too frightened, to fight overmuch. The cortege drew her toward some sort of old-fashioned mill. There was no river, and she wondered how its wheel turned, because it seemed to be working with only the weak wind as its driving force. Even the wings’ design felt… off. They were made out of an odd material, with thin threads and patched holes, that could not have resisted any kind of wind, much less one able to move a wheel on its own.

The children exploded inside in happy clambering. Those who had bags, which Jeanne only glimpsed then, ran towards a staircase in the corner, while the rest dragged her towards a table in the center. On it, exactly in the middle of it, was a loaf of bread, carefully watched over by a young woman.

Finally, Jeanne thought, her fear melted away. Finally, someone normal.

She looked to be her age, or just about; red hair caught in big messy pigtails on either side of her head; black overalls over a white tee and _sneakers_. She wore sneakers! She would have been at home in the drama program.

Then the woman raised her head towards Jeanne and cracked a smile that was everything but normal. “Ah, there you are. Just in time.” Her smile wasn’t kind, or soft.

“Just in time for what,” the elf in her key asked. “She’s the one who found you,” he told Jeanne. “What are you talking about? This is such a bad idea…”

Jeanne herself was not that confident, though she did not want to show it where the redhead could see or hear. Instead she cleared her throat and offered her hand to shake. “I am sorry, I don’t think we’ve met.”

The other girl waved her off with an impatient gesture. “Let’s not go the merry way around with stupid chitchat, it doesn’t matter anyway. You’re lucky to have made your way here in the storm, you were exhausted. Aren’t you hungry?”

The deluge of words stunned Jeanne for a moment. Then she processed the question and realized that, oddly enough, no. She wasn’t hungry. Not even thirsty.

She shook her head.

“I’m sorry, I don’t have time to stay. I have to go now.”

“Don’t worry about that,” the girl said. “I know a way.”

“What way?”

The redhead nodded towards the door like that was an answer. “Once you’re out of here, you’ll get to the Castle in two hours tops, which is all you need to be in time. You’ll find your dear friend, and you can be out of there.”

Jeanne opened her mouth, and had nothing to say. It sounded too good to be true. “But…”

“Getting out in this storm would be crazy,” the other girl said, like she wasn’t surrounded by pumpkin children. “You are lucky we found you. It’s very much like him to throw you in the thick of it, sodding Cuckoo Lord and all that.”

Jeanne blinked.

“Cu…”

“It’s not an official title,” she laughed. “Just what I call him behind his back. He sends stronger storms when he has company, just to make us feel how lacking we must be.”

Jeanne was too confused to ask questions, and she’d seen the woman didn’t like being interrupted. Even if she asked, she didn’t know where to start even understanding the words, let alone the girl. So… she admitted it.

“I don’t understand.”

“Good. What you can’t understand can’t hurt you. Aren’t you hungry?”

And she gestured towards the loaf.

Not quite sure what to make of the sudden offer, Jeanne looked at the golden bread. It looked supremely appetizing, with its crown of flour and amicable curves, but she wasn’t hungry at all.

“It’s just, I don’t know that I can…”

“We made it for you,” said one of the children. Jeanne turned and watched him (her?) totter over to her. He (she?) latched onto her cape, raising towards her a face without eyes. “You like it, you like it? Do you like it?”

Jeanne blinked. This was… for her? Made for her?

She wasn’t sure she wanted or could trust this farandole of children, but there was no need to say that out loud. For some reason both the woman and her pumpkin gang were her allies, or pretended to be allies. It wouldn’t do to offend them.

Swallowing, she took the steps that separated her from the redhead. She was smaller than Jeanne, with eyes so intense it was a struggle not to stare into them. Purple. She’d never seen purple eyes. Jeanne raised her right hand to the bread, brushing against it as she made to hold it.

Right that moment, the light in the room wavered. The redhead stepped back hissing, and the pumpkins scattered with a shriek. In the corner of her eye, Jeanne even saw some climbing the walls, hands and feet sticking to the mortar with no apparent holds.

Jeanne let go of the bread. Her fingers tingled. Well, no. One did, the one that Hao had… remade.

“Damn Cuckoo,” the redhead spat.

“Oh,” one of the pumpkins said sadly. “You don’t need it, do you?”

“What?”

“Our bread,” the girl said. “We made it for you, because you cannot eat from the cauldron or from our King’s hand. Or you shouldn’t. But you have, haven’t you?”

Jeanne felt her spine tingling. She had done what? “I didn’t eat anything,” she promised, letting her arm relax. She remembered crawling in the thick mud, feeling so hungry for the disgusting earth beneath her. But she hadn’t given in. Hadn’t had the time. So what could he be talking about? Since that moment… Since that moment she hadn’t felt hungry. She’d walked hours and hours in the rain, feeling cold, but not hungry.

It had been so long. Surely she should need food. Surely she should be _hungry_. Why wasn’t she hungry?

Some of the pumpkins had gathered back around. A few had strayed to the woman, wailing and crying for comfort. She patted their heads like a mother, whispering gentle words Jeanne did not understand. Then, moving faster than any human rightly should, she moved to Jeanne, her chin coming uncomfortably close as she stared her down. Jeanne could have sworn she heard skittering.

“I didn’t eat anything,” she repeated, mouth dry.

“And yet something happened. You are faetouched.”

The word rang like an insult, though not one Jeanne had ever heard before. “I…”

“Have you never been told that you shouldn’t let them touch you?”

The woman stabbed a finger into her chest, and Jeanne moved back, panicking. Touched…? She lowered her gaze towards her hand, the thing that grew there. Instinct told her to hide it and she did, pushing her hand deep in her pocket.

“All this work for nothing,” one of the pumpkins wailed. “Just to be lost. All for naught!”

“Why should I eat your bread,” Jeanne asked them. “Isn’t it yours?”

“Our bread is real,” the girl explained. “The wheat grew on the earth, the grain was milled in a mill, the bread was baken in an oven. You can eat it without losing your appetite for human food, without giving another power over you. That’s what it means for it to be real.”

Jeanne blinked. Human food? Giving another power?

It was Hao, wasn’t it. “What did he do to me?”

“What did he do to you? It’s not just the Challenge. You saw him,” she accused, laughter all gone. She was staring at her, gauging her, as if she could sniff it out on her. Jeanne should have shown her finger. This woman would know what to do with it. And yet somehow… Somehow it felt private.

“Did he give you something to eat? A peach, perhaps? He’s nothing if not traditional.”

Jeanne almost said no, almost took her hand from her pocket. And then she said: “Yes. A peach. I was in an oubliette.”

“You’re an idiot,” the redhead spat.

Maybe she was.

“What’s your name? You never said,” Jeanne said instead. That got her a laugh.

“A real idiot. Call me witch, that’s all I’ll give you.”

Witch? That didn’t sound… super positive. Or maybe it was, and it was on the contrary an acknowledgement of her power.

“Alright.” She hesitated. “Witch.” Then her eyes slid to the bread, and she realized she could still use it. “I’m sorry, for the peach. I didn’t know.”

“Of course you didn’t.”

“But you haven’t worked for naught. Your bread was not made for nothing and it will not be lost if you give it to me still.”

“You don’t need it,” one of the pumpkins sneered.

“Maybe not,” could she ask about them? Should she? She didn’t. “I am not alone here.” Tamao. Tamao must be so hungry! She was wise enough not to eat anything given to her by fantasy kings in fay castles. She was wise enough not to let herself be… touched, by them, either. “I, I have a friend. She is human too. She’s the one I am looking for.”

“The girl who was taken?” The witch smiled, all glimmering teeth. Pearls. Crystal filed down to spears. “I’ve seen her at the ball. She can’t dance to save her life.”

“At the ball?” Anxiety surged in her blood, and something else, something green. “What ball?”

“The King’s ball, of course. No clue about much, your friend. Clumsy. But cute.”

It was hard to tell if she meant it in a good or a bad way, but it made Jeanne bite into her lip all the same. What was Hao doing to Tamao, all alone in the Castle?

“Where was that? Could you take me?”

“It was in the Castle, of course. The King was there. Everyone was there! She wore a marvelous dress. My sister has good taste,” and she chuckled though Jeanne did not understand a lick of it. “All stitched in pearls and lace. A real queen of the night! The King was drinking her all in.”

“Mathilda,” one of the smaller pumpkins called, “will you take me next time? Will you, oh, will you?”

“Of course,” she snapped, like he’d interrupted something important. “I shall make you one very nice knight.” Was it cruelty in her eyes? A spark of fire? Jeanne did not quite know what to say, and felt some pity for the so-called knight. One of the other pumpkins held out the bread to her, wrapped in a very fine scarf of many colors. She took it, and held it against her. There was no impulse to bite into it, when at home she loved warm bread. Was that it? The sign of her corruption? She should have torn off the King’s gift the moment she received it. Maybe then she would have had a small chance of getting out normal. Maybe losing a finger wasn’t that big of a price. _You still could_ , a voice told her. _You could tell Mathilda the witch of your gifted finger. She would know what to do._

She didn’t. Instead she turned her hope to Tamao. How she hoped her friend would know to resist him! Perhaps she could find a pocket like this one, an oasis of misplaced summer. Maybe there she’d be safe.

“The rain stopped,” Tokagerôh told her from her wrist. She didn’t know how he knew. “We should go.”

Jeanne nodded, but she didn’t trust herself to speak yet. Instead she bowed in front of the pumpkins, like she’d seen Tamao do. Then, because they’d all been so kind to her and she understood very little, she tried to speak.

“I must go now. But I am so very grateful, for the bread, for my friend. Thank you. May I do something for you?”

Immediately the room was filled with whispers, the crowd shivering in delight. Her elf, however, cried out in shock. “You dolt! Are you stupid, to give such an open favor? You are doomed, doomed and triple-doomed!”

The outburst confused Jeanne. It was much too late, anyway. Mathilda had heard, and now she unwound from her bright red hair what seemed to be a long pin, glittering with amethysts in its handle, and sharp. So very sharp.

“How kind of you,” she purred, pressing the object into Jeanne’s hand. “I know just the thing. It will help us so very much. Such a good thing you are.”

“How does that help… I’m sorry, I don’t…”

“When you see the King next,” the witch said, showing off glittering stones instead of teeth in her innocent smile, “tell him to think of us sometimes, will you? I know just the thing. This, right in his heart, that should do.”

And before Jeanne’s horrified eyes the pumpkin patch burst in crackled laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Are you a witch or are you a fairy, or are you the wife of Michael Cleary?" is an Irish children's song, the kind you sing while jumping rope. It's about Bridget Cleary, a woman who was killed by her husband in 1895. He said he did it because he thought she'd been replaced by a changeling after being abducted by fairies. He had about nine people from their families and friends there when she was killed, and they all believed Michael's - the husband's - version. He set her on fire and they just sat there and watched. They'd come to help him cleanse her of the evil forces that lived within her.... or so they said. They all went on trial. Michael was imprisoned.  
> It's said her death was the last witch burning in Ireland.


	10. How you turn my world

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Don’t be fooled,” Tokagerôh warned. “He is not your friend. He is no one’s friend.”

Sunstone Town / Eighth Hour

“Happy now?”

Jeanne did not reply. Wrapped in her now clean cape, she was walking along the edge of the field, looking for the bridge Mathilda mentioned. It would lead, according to her, to a shortcut for the castle. Something the Goblin King would not see coming.

Perhaps she should not trust Mathilda so much, after learning she had essentially been had. After promising, through a roundabout way, to kill the Goblin King for her.

Still, it was something, and it felt good to hold a weapon in her hand. She regretted giving up fencing after high school, a little; but at least she had that to lean on to.

“Are you even listening? You don’t realize what you’ve done,” the elf was crying. “You dolt! This is a death warrant, not a gift. Giving your word was folly!”

“I still find your voice grating,” Jeanne said in between her teeth. She walked still when she drew her left arm behind her, in the position she would have it if she were dueling.

Of course, the weapon she now held was nothing like a proper foil. It was more the size of a small butter knife, with no guard, and no cap, either. She could not hold it properly.

It wasn’t a weapon meant for honest fighting. Perhaps she should have been past that, but she found that she was not able to. Mathilda was not a good person, she could tell. Try as she might to practice as she walked, a little footwork here, arm movements there, she could just tell it would be next to useless with such a weapon. It was meant to stab from up close, like a thief.

So she would have to be a thief.

On her left the wheat continued to whisper gently at the edge of the bubble. Better strategize now, then.

A coward’s weapon and a shortcut to the Castle. Something in her recoiled at the thought, but in truth she did not have the luxury of honor. She had tried it the proper way, running around in the Labyrinth, and all she’d earned was hypothermia, amputation, and a freakish finger.

Was it even a finger? She touched it lightly, the weird, hard stick in the place where her ring finger used to be. It was almost green on its end, like a bud. Would it flower?

Maybe the right thing would be to tear it off. The thought of having a tree branch on her hand made her sick, but she did not dare. It flexed like a finger when she tried it. The veins running up to it… looked a little green.

How much time had she lost before arriving here? How much time did she have left before this, too, swallowed her?

“You do not get it, do you,” the elf sighed. “You gave your word. You have to go through with it, or the Labyrinth will punish you. Turn you to lead and feathers.”

“Then I’ll keep my word,” Jeanne said, trying to forget how strong the Goblin King had felt, how little of a weapon she had, and how much of this all was her fault. “I’ll kill the King and reverse the tragedy.”

As long as she could get Tamao out… Now, with this odd finger and the promise she had unwisely made to Mathilda, she doubted she would be allowed to go home at all. Feathers and lead, indeed. But if she got Tamao out, it would be worth it, wouldn’t it? She would have repaired her mistake.

That required the King to keep his word, which she doubted. Then she would have no choice, and her promise would be easily fulfilled. Even if she didn’t think Mathilda would be better to this weird Kingdom than he was. Even if he’d kept her from dying in the mud.

“I want no part of this,” the elf moaned. “It’s a thing to be his toy, but you are talking about a coup. This is dangerous. I don’t want to.”

Jeanne stopped walking. They had come to a point where the field rose into a gentle hill. From there she could see ropes and branches assembled into what she had been told was a bridge. Its shoddy construction did not exactly inspire trust.

“Okay,” she said. “I can leave you here.”

In the corn, outside of Hao’s influence… Wouldn’t it be a great place to live, if you had no one to save?

“You could be happy here, I think. What do I need to do, break the key?”

The elf gasped loudly. “What? No, that’s nonsense. Don’t you remember? If you break the key, I will die. Please don’t.”

He immediately dissolved into panic, and she did feel bad at the sight. “No, don’t…”

Too late, he was crying. With a sigh, she sat down in the grass and held the key in her hands. “There, there…” It sounded cringy even to her ears. She didn’t know how to handle people crying like this.

Poor thing. Much as she disliked his tone and found his companionship so far unfruitful, she did not mean to hurt him. “Alright, alright, stop crying. I will not kill you. But how do I free you?”

It took him a few moments to calm down. In the meantime, she drew the key close to her face. It was bigger than a normal key, but he still couldn’t be bigger than her finger. He filled his own space to a point where all of his bones must be screaming in agony.

Hesitantly, she repeated: “How do I free you?”

“You cannot,” he snapped. “After betrayal there is no freedom. I am destined to be broken, burned, and reformed, eternally.”

Jeanne could not keep her confusion from spilling all over her face. It made precious little sense. Such… violence, for such a small being.

“Will you ask me,” he sneered, frustration obvious, “what I did to deserve this?”

She had been about to, but she held back. He clearly did not want to tell. She couldn’t help but think about what he said, though. After betrayal?

“But you just said you betrayed him before. Is there really no other way? Can I do nothing for you?”

He opened his mouth, then closed it. “We are but flies before human dreams. I suppose a sincere wish could get me out.”

“I want to get you out,” she said sincerely. He laughed.

“You will need more than words.”

A little irked, Jeanne stared him down.

“Don’t get me wrong, words are powerful. But – but here, the Goblin King’s magic is binding me.”

“Even now that we are no longer on his lands?”

“Even now. You are…” He seemed to hesitate. “You are a Challenger. He has power over you, in a sense. I would need you to be free, for your words to take their full effect. Or for… For it to mean something to you, I suppose.”

Jeanne blinked. Power over her? She had not agreed to that. She had not…

“What does that mean, exactly? Being a Challenger?” She heard the capital letter in his voice, reproduced it without really understanding why. Since she started, she’d kept… assuming things. Believing lies and testing painful truths. Tokagerôh was not very nice, but perhaps she should sympathize more. That is what Tamao would have done. She would have put hot chocolate on the stove, wrapped a blanket around the key, and listened to his advice.

She missed Tamao.

“Well…” He scratched his head. “Challengers are… people from your world, from Aboveground. They send people away – children, usually, it’s always easier with children – to the Goblin King when they cannot care for them. Sometimes it’s even an act of love. But not everyone who sends someone away is a Challenger. Only those that try to take them back take that name.”

Jeanne felt her chest tighten painfully. For her it clearly had not been an act of love. Foolishness, most certainly. She had been… She had been…

Dared she admit it? She had been upset Tamao received so much attention at the party. She wanted to recapture her for herself, to impress her maybe with the play, and…

And instead she had brought them both here.

“I have thirteen hours to find my friend,” she repeated quietly. “What happens if I don’t, Tokagerôh?”

He swallowed. “Well… She will stay here. As the, uh, Heart of the Labyrinth.”

“The Heart?” Jeanne frowned.

“I told you, didn’t I? Human wishes are powerful here. You… I mean… Challengers come looking for an adventure, so the Labyrinth gives them one. It makes itself dangerous, scary, cruel to expose what you need and what you want.”

Jeanne let out a scoff at that. Did she need a severed finger? No. She needed the exact opposite of that.

It only hit her then. She had lost a finger. She was never going to be able to do surgery with this thing as her finger. It would never be properly sterile and it was long enough to be a hindrance in the standard gloves they used.

She would never step into an operation theater.

In her mind’s eye she saw Marco. In thirteen hours he would know of her disappearance, he would have to. So when they emerged – if they emerged – he would wrap her in a hug, the kind that were so tight she almost thought she’d explode. Then he would lean back, and he would see her finger, and.

The shock, the rage, the disappointment in his eyes, she could see them clear as day.

He’d always told her to be so very careful about her hands. No cycling or skiing because she could dislocate her thumb. No cracking her knuckles because of the risk of developing arthritis. Even fencing had always been considered a risk that she was taking.

It felt like her insides were turning to stone. That was it, then. The Labyrinth’s gift to her. Ruined hands and ruined dreams.

“Miss?”

The elf seemed panicked. No doubt because her hands were shaking so hard she could barely keep him in them.

“What a joke,” she spat. Letting go of the key, she left it to dangle from her hand as she rose to her feet. “I’m sorry, Tokagerôh. You will have to stay with me for now.”

And then she started on the hill.

As she thought, the bridge looked like it was on the edge of collapse. Its lines vanished in what looked like fog and what she determined to be the edge of the bubble. She could already hear it creaking below her feet.

But it wouldn’t break, would it? And if it did she would just fall in the wheat fields unarmed. Or so she hoped, because when she arrived at the first planks and looked down, she instead saw darkness. The ground vanished in a thick, dark purple mist that was equally beautiful and terrifying.

A twinge of vertigo came over her. What would become of her if she fell? The ground could not be far, but try as she might she couldn’t calm her nerves.

“I met people,” she told Tokagerôh, to calm herself, “on the outskirts. They didn’t look half as human as you.”

He sniffed. “Maybe they weren’t.”

Jeanne thought of Z and the birdman. “They were suffering.” She swallowed. “I assumed the Goblin King was a cruel man?”

“He is,” the elf said with a little spite. “But they were suffering because the Labyrinth is decaying. Without humans to power our kingdom it would sink away into nothingness, and there aren’t enough resources to keep us all in our proper forms when it starts.”

Jeanne bit her lip. “Has it been long?”

“I can’t say I recall very well. I was already – I have been in this a while.”

“I’m sorry.” And, oddly enough, she was; the fact that he was not nice stopped mattering when she considered his predicament. Being kept prisoner in such a small space…

“What is it like? When there are humans to power it?”

He thought about it, and she knew then that he was trying to give her a real answer.

“It was alive,” he finally whispered. “Really alive. Not just – not just this, pockets of danger in the dark. The Labyrinth flowered and grew out – no more wastes, just fields of rainbow-colored corn and flowers. Fae of all kinds came to it; the King’s balls hosted real people, not just ghosts in a mask.”

Jeanne frowned. The King’s…

“Was he different, then?”

“Him?” His snort was loud. Then he softened. “I guess he was, too. Less haughty, less cruel. Whimsical, as he is always, but…”

Jeanne tried to imagine it. “He wasn’t very cruel with me,” she admitted. “He did what I bid him do, even if I didn’t know what I was doing. And he tried to heal me.”

He took her dreams away, but he was trying to help her. She guessed. He replaced what he took.

“Don’t be fooled,” Tokagerôh warned. “He is not your friend. He is no one’s friend.”

It wasn’t hard to believe that; she gave the elf a nod, and started on the bridge. Tokagerôh grew quiet, and she did not ask any more questions. She did not feel ready to leave the summer town. In fact, try as she might to be brave, there was a voice in her head telling her to go back. Begging her to take more time, gather her strength. Wait.

As she reached the midway point, she turned to get a look at where she started, but the hill was already encapsulated in fog.

Worse; someone came out of it, right behind her, and he did not look happy.

“There is no going back,” the Goblin King said, and he pushed her forward.

With a gasp Jeanne crossed the frontier and fell, head over heels, down the other side. There was no more bridge, in spite of what she had thought she’d seen; just a small earthly mound, the twin of the one she left. She rolled all the way down into the muddy wastes.

The earth danced before her eyes, pinning her to the ground for a few long moments. When she sat up, breathless, she saw who’d pushed her.

The Goblin King had found her and he was angry.

“Getting lost, are we?”

She could not answer him, yet, for the world was still turning. Maddeningly he started to stalk the edge of her vision, circling her like a predator; she closed her eyes and tried to fight off the feeling.

“You’re the one,” she said, eyes closed, “who sent me there.”

“I certainly did not,” he hissed, somewhere behind her. “You had the key in your hand. You refused to follow me to the castle. This should have constituted your failure.”

Jeanne swallowed, hard. But this was hope.

It _should have_? Then it had not.

“I can still find her. I still have time.”

There was laughter behind her eyelids. She did not dare peek.

“Ah, yes. So little, though.”

“Little?” Try as she might, she was worried, and she opened her eyes to find that the earth had stilled, and he was in front of her. She stared into his eyes and forced herself to ask. “How much?”

He shrugged, his face twisting into a fanged smirk. “Who could say? Too little for someone so slow. You are hours away from my inner sanctum. Of course, if you broke your key…”

She narrowed her eyes. “No doubt another trap of yours.” She did not want to ask. She really did not want to ask, but she glanced at her key. Tokagerôh stared back, his face ashen. Hao’s presence had seemingly silenced him.

Staring at Tokagerôh still, she asked: “What would happen if I did?”

Tokagerôh could not go paler than he did.

“You would be taken elsewhere,” Hao said, like it was an obvious thing. Then, as if taken by a fancy, he changed directions: “You met Mathilda, then. How is my dearest red witch?”

Jeanne frowned. He had come into the bubble to throw her out. If he wanted to ask after the red witch, he could have gone in himself. This was just meant to make her lose even more time. But…

He was standing here, with her. Obviously waiting for something to happen. Obviously hoping to provoke her, one way or another.

That did not matter. What mattered is that she had the Goblin King right in front of her, and the means to fulfill her promise with him.

Slowly, she stood. Her body felt lighter than it had since the party. The hairpin was still in her bag. She could not feel it physically, but it scorched at her soul. It was an itch she could scratch, if she only took it upon herself to.

A coup, Tokagerôh had said.

She swallowed.

“I don’t have to tell you.”

“Oh, of course not. I could just go ask her; she loves it when I visit.”

Bluffing, he was bluffing, the pin proved as much. Jeanne, not taking her eyes off his, dipped her hand into her bag. He was staring at her, too; standing not five feet away. She worried he would notice; fished for a distraction.

“She gave me bread.”

He raised a brow. “Oh, did she? The first bread of Lugnasad? You must have impressed her. Did you eat any?”

She swallowed her answer. Gripped the pin in her hand.

“Ah, yes. It must have tasted quite bland to you, didn’t it?”

What an outrage. “You’re the one who did this to me,” she blurted out. “You touched my hand. How dare you…?”

“Oh, no, dearest. I didn’t _do this_ to you. All I did was make your clothes warm and your soul ignite.”

She rolled her eyes. “Clearly you did.” What a pompous ass. She was tense, now, slowly shifting into position.

He leaned forward, hands on his hips, as if he could smell the bread she carried. She wondered if he could smell the pin, too. He seemed so peaceful. So self-assured that she would do as he said, when the time came.

“I can assure you, of course, that the food at the castle is very different,” he purred slowly. Her stomach, unhelpfully, growled. “If you can get there. Since you refuse to use the means I gave to you.”

“I have no reason to trust you,” she pointed out, burning at the seams. What was he talking about? Food? At the castle? What was this new trap?

“No, you don’t.” Suddenly he seemed dark. Jeanne took a slow step back, not fully, just enough to find her feet should he jump her. “I do as you ask, offer you the key to the City, heal your wounds and offer you protection, but you have no reason to trust me.”

Was that spite? She didn’t understand. What was he trying to do?

Buzzing with confusion, she went on the offensive. “When I find your castle, I find Tamao. And I will find both. I will get her out of here, and you will never see either of us again.”

The handsome face darkened even further. Jeanne stepped back, but he was on her in an instant. She panicked and drew out her pin, slashing at him. She tore through the fabric of his clothes easily, too easily, and tore into his flesh.

He let out a terrible scream, one that was more bird than human, and Jeanne screamed with him. Her hand burned; she dropped her weapon and fell back.

The fey disappeared in a whirlwind of feathers and lightning, and she was once again alone in the dark.


	11. You've run so long

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Like candles to moths,” he explained, and then thought better of it. “Or rather, like candles to long-lost travelers. Sooner extinguished, but vital and treasured.”

Forest of the Departed / Tenth Hour

Dry sticks cracked under her boots as she walked deeper into the forest. Mathilda’s instructions were simple: once out of the bubble, look for the forest and follow the path you find at its edge. It led, according to her, to the outer walls of the Labyrinth, and there would be a breach she could go through.

It was a tiny path, to be sure. Branches stretched on either side towards her, like great arms wanting a hug. She did her best to not disturb them. There was no noise here, nothing that spoke of animals peopling this forest, but she did not want to test her luck.

From moment to moment her faetouched finger throbbed painfully, echoes of fire racing all the way to her elbow, and she relished in it. This was power as much as it was sickness. This was choice, and it was hers. Her human fingers caressed the swell of the pin in her bag, sometimes giving into the temptation of dipping into it. She brushed her alien appendage against the weapon, and though there was pain it wasn’t sharp. More like a tingling.

She dropped the pin when she slashed at Hao. The pain was sharp then, like she’d slashed at her own hand; when she looked she made herself retch.

The wood-like fae appendage now appeared crackled with silver. It hung oddly, throbbing when she tried to bend it, and it bled this silver substance she could not identify.

In the dirt it wasn’t hard to find her pin again. Holding it in her left hand, a little gauchely, she hacked away at her cape to make a bandage that she struggled to get to stick to her. Then she had cleaned the silver-and-gold splattered pin on her clothes and dropped it in her bread bag – no real time to pick and choose where to hold what, here. At first she thought Tokagerôh should go in there, with the bread and the weapon, but he protested so awfully that she changed her mind.

“Have you seen what it did to the King? I am not going anywhere that,” he explained.

Actually… Jeanne was no sure of what she saw. He had jerked back, obviously wounded. But Jeanne, too, was wounded. And she had slashed at him; she hadn’t stabbed him. It could have been an accident, if she did not know her way around foils. Sure, it had been some time, but… Since Mathilda gave her the pin, she had been thinking about it. It had all come back to her instantly, the steps, the rhythm, the blocks, and the attacks. She had attacked Hao, certainly; but she had just been trying to push him back, not to kill him.

Jeanne wondered idly if it was weakness on her part. Mathilda had been clear enough: she had said that to do away with her debt, she needed to hit him in the heart with the pin. And yes, she had slashed at his chest, where his heart should be. She hit him in the chest, but it wasn’t going to be fatal. A nick, at the most. A warning strike. She had slashed meaning to draw blood, and she had done so. She meant to stop the bout. Did that… fulfill her obligations towards the red witch?

Tokagerôh was right, though: little that lived here would want to get close to what had nicked the King. The King himself was likely to be twice as angry at her as he had been before.

“Tokagerôh,” she asked curiously.

“Yes?”

“Words have power here, that’s what you’ve said.”

“Why, of course. Like they do everywhere,” he replied, a little fast for honesty.

She shook her head. “Not in my world. In my world people lie. They say they will do things, and then they don’t.”

“How rude.”

Jeanne pursed her lips. “I suppose.” She had always thought exactly that – had always hated, feared the thought of people lying to her. Well, not ‘people’ in general. Marco, mostly.

Tamao, too. When they held hands and played against each other and looked at each other…

It hadn’t hit her then, how narrow her vision of things was. Not even when Hao caught her in her own unwise deal. It hadn’t hit her until now, how much comfort there was in the ability to lie.

“So you can’t lie,” she said quietly.

“I can’t.”

“Could Hao?”

“I…” He seemed to hesitate. “I don’t think so.”

He probably hated lies the same way she did. Perhaps to find parallels there should be vexing, but it made so much sense she could not really help it. There was something about him, about this place, that felt unnervingly familiar.

Jeanne remembered being very small, maybe ten, or eleven. Luchist was gone to his own summer lands by then, leaving her with Marco. He took her everywhere with him, to every conference, every summit, as if afraid she would vanish into thin air if he even took his eyes off her. He paid for chauffeured limos and sat in the back next to her, reviewing the meticulous notes he needed for this or that talk while she stared out into space.

He did not mean for her to be bored. In fact, he always made sure she had books with her, above her reading level most of the time. Before he ‘lost’ _Labyrinth_ she always had it with her, even if she would read something else. Sometimes he let her try her hand at deciphering his writing, and he explained his research to her; but soon enough he would be mumbling and ranting under his breath, and Jeanne’s attention would drift away. To the books, at first, but reading in the car always gave her dreadful nausea. So, for the sake of Marco’s notes, her clothes and the chauffeur’s good humor, she left her books – even when it was _her book_ – and stared out into the distance outside. The French motorways were bordered with trees most of the time, to cancel out the noise. Not much to feast her eyes upon when she had hours to fill up.

That one trip she remembered began like any other. Marco had been explaining to her his latest bout of research on neuromarkers because _Ninety-three_ had her stomach roil up in rebellion. Then he spotted a mistake in the speech he’d prepared and, after apologizing, had started speedreading to make sure it was the only one. She had nodded patiently, and then glanced outside, prepared to drift into the ether. She knew the song by now. It would be a dull, boring moment, stretching towards infinity.

And then it was not.

Just like that, in between the moments she blinked, a shadow emerged from the thick of the trees. It felt barely real; like she was almost not awake. But young Jeanne could have sworn that there was something there, in between the thin trunks standing in neat rows.

It was big. Bigger than the car. Its shape made her think of the boar in _Princess Mononoke_ ; she had never seen such hard-looking and mottled fur. It had antlers like an elk, and each of its bounding leaps brought it into better light _,_ into weaker deniability.

And there was someone on its back. Not a giant. They looked human – they looked her age, small on the back of the large beast. They had neither saddle nor reins. Instead with bare hands they had grabbed into the skin of the elk-boar, and their thighs dug deep into its sides. They were leaning forward, and their hair flew behind them, and they were beautiful. They looked positively radiant with the hunger of the hunt, someone caught out of a fairy tale.

Jeanne’s face had come closer to the glass, and she’d fogged it up ever so slightly with her own breath. The protestations of her stomach morphed into something else, something hot. She felt hungry, too. Restless. Like she should be outside with the figure, running with them on her own steed. The car became a boiling prison and her hand reached for the car door.

“Jeanne, lean back. If our chauffeur hits something in the road you could get brain damage,” Marco said distractedly. She blinked, and the moment passed. The rider was gone; there was only the trees.

That longing she had felt was but an echo of an even earlier memory, she realized then, as she stomped on the crunchy path in between the trees. It winded deeper into the forest, and she had to trust Mathilda that it was the right one because if it was not she could walk for miles and never get out. She couldn’t tell if these memories were a distraction from her task, or if her task was a distraction from herself; to have these longings pulse beneath her skin was a torture on its own.

Try as she might to focus on the trees the memory came to her. It was not a good day. She was small, six or even five, sitting at the very back of a complicated conference. Marco and Luchist were meant to be sharing the results of their last bout of research as a pair. A family. Marco brought in the hard science, the data and the imagery. How you could see the autism spectrum and its various manifestations in the hospital. Luchist had been fancying old Irish folklore. Changelings and the ways some normal people, people who otherwise would have been considered good people but who weren’t good at all, could rationalize leaving children out to die. Or sometimes keep them around, even if they were ill-suited to the life you’d meant for them. They had rehearsed and prepared for this, and yet, somehow, it devolved into a terrifying screaming match about what constituted ‘normality’ and what should be corrected or left alone. The host could not get them to calm down.

It was unnerving and Jeanne remembered biting her ring finger so hard she’d thought she would draw blood. She did not want to cry in such an open, crowded space; hoped against hope no one would look her way. Her shame was so great she dropped her eyes to the floor, and that was when she saw it.

It looked like a beautiful crystal. Small like her fist and iridescent like nothing she knew, it tumbled past her and towards the doors. Before she could think about it she slid off her chair and tottered after. It was a fascinating sight. Though the ground looked flat, the ball somehow picked up momentum against what could only be very minute bumps, and it was always just a little too fast for her.

She followed it right out of the room without a second thought. And then, still without a second thought, she followed it right into the back of another person.

“S-sorry,” she managed, aware of how rude and oblivious someone would have to be to slam into someone else in an empty conference hallway. The person had turned. It was someone her age, and at first she couldn’t tell – girl? Boy? Girl?

“You’re fine,” he said, definitely a boy, though his hair was long and his earrings could have made her jealous. He bent down to pick up the ball, and she felt a prickle of jealousy at the back of her skull.

“Is that yours?”

She registered from the edge of her vision that he’d snapped his eyes back to hers, but her gaze was glued to the toy. He had started to play with it in the strangest way, rolling it about his hand in an impressive finger dance. She watched and watched; he never stumbled, let alone drop the thing.

“How are you doing that?”

She hadn’t even waited for him to answer. She knew that was rude. She couldn’t help it. Round and round he made the ball go.

“That?” Like there was anything else. The lilt of his voice was pleasant at first, but it held a mocking edge, something sharp. “I can’t say. A magician never reveals his tricks.”

That, somehow, drew her back to him. To his face. To the smile slowly twisting his mouth. Of course, she thought, young as she was. A magician, that made sense. What did not was the instinct to say something back, and then the terrible realization that she had no magic of her own to show him, nothing that would account for her young years. This was what remained with her for years, the longing for her own craft.

“But,” and he was smiling wide now, a gentle smile that held no edge at all, “I can give you a present. If you want.”

“A present?”

There hadn’t been, of course, any present she could remember. She couldn’t remember much, to be fair. It was an image in her mind of something she’d almost forgotten. No doubt Marco or Luchist had found her and taken her away from this strange, strange boy. She did know that it was the year Luchist had gifted her the book. The one Marco conveniently forgot during the move. But was it really Luchist who gave it to her? Or did the boy slip it into her hands?

Suddenly that urge to phone him, even though she did not have his number. They hadn’t spoken in years. Maybe he had even forgotten about her entirely. But he would be able to tell, right? Whether he’d given her the _Labyrinth_ or not?

What she did know was that she never learned to juggle. Instead at breakfast she practiced sutures on grapes before presenting them to Marco for judgment. In the evenings he would have her practice handling tweezers and scissors with latex-covered hands. In the end she had gotten over the crawling of her skin at the feeling. She would be a good surgeon, would have been, before what happened to her hand. But she was no magician.

“Tokagerôh,” she said, drifting from very far away. “Do people from here ever go to my world? To Aboveground?”

“Sometimes.” The elf’s voice was faint, and she hooked her arm over her shoulder again. It was awkward to talk to him with how little his voice carried, but at least like that it worked a little better. “If they are powerful and the time and place are right.”

“What do you mean?”

Her eyes flicked to him and she saw him shrug. “Solstices are easy. They are time of blurry nights and blurrier memories. It is easier for children. They have larger liminal spaces.”

“Liminal?” She knew the word. “In-between places, right? Like… in a hospital’s waiting room.” Or during a car trip.

“Exactly.”

The twirling of her ball before her eyes. The hunger this person had shared with her.

“Why do you do it?”

“I never have,” Tokagerôh said sullenly. Her chest tightened and she wondered if maybe asking questions was wrong of her. If perhaps she ought to leave him alone. “But I suppose they do it for fun. For sustenance. Humans are… vibrant. Attractive.”

Jeanne frowned. Attractive left a bitter taste in her mouth. It felt reductive in a way that ‘vibrant’ did not. She had to ask. “Vibrant?”

“Like candles to moths,” he explained, and then thought better of it. “Or rather, like candles to long-lost travelers. Sooner extinguished, but vital and treasured.”

Treasured. She wasn’t sure she liked the word. It was bitterly familiar. Spoke of crowded conference halls and neatly combed hair. Would treasured really be the word? She could imagine herself as the traveler, looking for a warm glow in the trees.

“I think I saw glimpses of this place,” she whispered. “When I was little.”

“Most children do. Then they forget,” and there was no bitterness in his voice. “Or they make of it what they need.”

What she needed? She wondered, silently, about the book and the car and all the other times she had been quietly strange. Her hand throbbed painfully.

“There was a boy. Not a goblin.”

Tokagerôh snorted. “I doubt it was a boy. Methinks you met a fae in disguise, more like.”

“In disguise?”

“Yes. Appearance here is… shifting. A costume, rather than your nature. When you talk to a child, you can look like a child.”

She worried her lip. “Why would you do that? Isn’t that a kind of lie? Aren’t costumes and masks…?”

For a moment he was silent, as if the thought was entirely alien to him. “I don’t think it’s the same,” he said after a moment. “It’s all connected to… To that idea of liminal spaces. In-between. Fae who come to humans… They are changed by what they interact with. They become…” He didn’t sound too sure. “It’s not always ill intent.”

Jeanne wondered about Hao’s intent, and whether it could be anything positive. He had healed her after her stupid mistake. But then he’d been threatening and strange, and he still held Tamao. Tamao, not herself.

She glanced at the elf. “What do you really look like?”

He went pale, in a way she did not know he could. One more sin to feel guilty about. “My powers were stripped off me, I’m afraid. What you see is what you get.”

In spite of the guilt suddenly surging through her veins, Jeanne found herself grinning. She… she liked that. Having someone with her who showed her his true face, even if he was forced to be here.

“Is my predicament funny?”

“No. But I like that.”

“You shouldn’t,” he snapped. “I am a useless ally, and not a nice-looking one, either.

“I said no to the mud cottage,” Jeanne reminded him, before stopping dead in her tracks. “Ally?”

Flushing, Tokagerôh turned his face towards the back of the key.

“Tokagerôh,” she felt so soft, “didn’t you say coups were out of your league?”

“Forget I said anything! I didn’t mean it anyways!”

“No!” She shook the key, tried to coax him back to her. “No, please, Tokagerôh, come back. I – I am very much thankful for your allyship. It means a lot to me.”

“Fat good it does to you.”

“It does,” she protested. “You teach me about this place. You don’t lie to me.”

“I literally cannot.”

“That doesn’t matter. I will always be in your debt.”

“No!” He cried out. “Have you learned nothing? Stop saying things like this! Do not acknowledge your dues! Never!”

“I will,” she yelled back. “I will and I do! I recognize my debt to you. I am your indebted. And I will only consider it paid when I free you.”

He took in a sharp breath, quite ready to fight her once more. Then he relented with a sigh. She stared into his green eyes. “Because I will free you,” she whispered.

“What have I done,” he said, looking almost angry at himself, “to deserve this? That kind of promise?”

Jeanne had never felt so sure of herself. So entirely Jeanne. “You kept me from shattering your key. You kept me from hurting you. I am grateful.”

He flushed.

“That’s stupid! I was playing a part. I was meant to do that, to lead you astray. Even now, you could break the key and save your friend, and –“

“And I will not,” she said soothingly. “Because you stayed my hand.”

He shook his head, clearly unable to understand. Unwilling? “How was it not a sacrifice worth making? One life for another? I am no one.”

“Not to me. I will not settle for this kind of bargain. We will save Tamao together. I promise.”

“And what if we cannot?”

“Don’t speak like that,” she chided gently. “We will get there.”

“Oh yeah? And where are you going?”

Jeanne raised her head and realized she was not sure. When she stopped, which she barely remembered doing, she was on a rather clear path. Now, however, it had eroded to sparsely pale pebbles that were strewn about more by chance than by design. The trees were everywhere as thick, their branches naked and begging. She swallowed and tasted sour.

 _Where are you going_?

One moment earlier it had been so clear in her mind. She was going through these woods with a goal in mind. Its urgency was still apparent in her mind, and she forced her feet forward. It felt like wading through cold waters.

_What are you looking for?_

There was a person. Someone she made promises to, and someone she had made one promise to. People who needed her to honor her word. She waded through the cold waters and breathed in what felt like ice.

_Why should you?_

That one was easy. Promises needed to be kept. Even when the going got tough.

_Distractions, distractions, distractions. Does any of it matter?_

It did, though. She was on a schedule. She remembered the song of the clock. Or was it a horn? She could still hear it in the wind. She could not afford to be late. But where was the path?

_Think of your calling. Or have you forgotten it?_

She had, hadn’t she? What a disaster. These woods were so dense, so cold. So dangerous, when the sensible thing would have been to wait for help, to call it even. Why was she still forging ahead? Like there was fire at her heels. _Where are you going? You don’t know._

She did not.

Around her the forest was dark and indifferent. It could stretch for hundreds of miles and she was lost in the thick of it. She was lost. No, she couldn’t… She had to…

 _Cease your fretting, gentlechild. We will take your distractions, your bonds, your impurities_.

The image of a bird settled in her mind. A pitiful thing, large and powerful and tied to its handler’s hand. She was bird. Set onto an illusory course for freedom. Her jesses ensured she would soon enough return to her bindings. Though she did not feel like her arms were her own she could sense them wrap around her body.

It was obvious, wasn’t it? She could no more leave her to him than she could forget him to please her father. Their names ceased to matter. Were taken from her mind by the tide. It wasn’t a violent taking. It felt like letting go.

She was the bird, and she was blind.

_You will be delivered virginal and perfect to your crystal throne._

She could see it, too, in spite of her blind eyes. If she only put them all aside, if she stopped caring for them all, there would be glory for at the end of it. A life free of commitment. A throne, cold, but shimmering and sacred.

She tried to turn her head, to see if they could be there, too. If she could keep all of it, girl and boy and human and god. And she did see them, wrapped into each other with the same expression on their faces. Tamao. Hao. Their names came back with the water. So similar. They fit into each other, so well. She…

 _Forget her, forget her, forget him, they are nothing but sparks before your dawning glory,_ the forest said, and the throne gleamed before her eyes, magnificent and cutting. She could no longer see them. There was only the vast expanse of dry and perfect life stretching before her. The agony of it.

 ** _Jeanne_** , _she heard them say, and she could no longer see them but she focused on their voices._

_Turn away from these flames. Turn away! They will bind you._

**_They would._ **

_They will torment you._

**_They would._ **

_They will leave you flesh and bone and human._

**_They would, and she loved them for it._ **

There was a bitterness in the trees now, an anger, the sound of horns, _but she had no time for still life._

_You could be so much more than this._

**_She did not want to be more than this._ **

**I said no** _,_ she tried to say, but she did not hear herself.

_You could…_

Jeanne screamed. She screamed and her body shot forward, pain flaring from her ear. She tried to bat it away, to tear the offending appendage off her. Loud squawks of protest rang all too close to her eardrum, and she found herself looking at a very small elf in the crux of her palm. “Tokagerôh?”

“You’re squeezing me! Stop! It’s too tight!”

She did not understand what she was seeing at first. There was no longer any key around him. He was no longer imprisoned. He was free and gesticulating in her fist.

Slowly, she opened her hand, she saw him breathe out in relief.

“What are you…?”

“You freed me,” he said, clearly not believing it himself. Twirling on himself, he seemed to be pushing against invisible walls, only to find them absent. She quickly brought her free hand to keep him from falling.

“You freed me,” he repeated. “You took the key and melted it away.”

Jeanne did not think it possible. Hadn’t he said this was to be his eternal punishment?

“You’re crying,” he said, like he wasn’t also bawling his eyes out. Perhaps he thought they were crying together. “And bleeding.”

Jeanne did not have the words to explain what just happened. The deep fire in her chest. Instead her voice came out small and childish:

“Why… why bite my ear, then?”

His temporary glee shifted immediately to leaden silence, and she felt it seep into her stomach.

“I couldn’t find any other way to draw you out of the tree knots. You were deaf and blind to everything about you. Do you still not hear it?”

Frowning, she wondered for a second what he meant, and then realized. “The horns.”

“The Hunt,” he nodded. “The Wild Hunt has come, and it’s coming for us.”

That did not sound good, but Jeanne was all out of fear. She felt powerful. She thrummed with fire.

“Thank you,” she said, earnestly.

“You owe me nothing,” he said through tears. “I am free. I am free.”

She smiled at him, and he smiled back, and for a second hope kept them dumb. Jeanne watched hope flit between them, like she would have a bird, and was glad for the jesses.

“So what do we do now?”

Tokagerôh took a deep breath. “Think of three things: the Castle, the King, and Tamao.”

“Easily done,” she replied. Then, seeing he was serious, she obeyed. It felt easy. They were so close now. She stood still in the forest and waited until she could no longer feel the chill. Until instead all she could see was the Tamao who drank beer with her on her balcony, cheeks pink as her hair. There was Hao, too, and the quests and the riddles and at the end of it the Castle, the home. “Got them. What now?”

He had never looked so solemn. Climbing up her arm, he settled behind her ear, and then whispered. “Now you run.”

She ran. He said it was no use looking for the path. It was gone now. The trees rose around them like teeth in neat rows, threatening to snatch and rip her. As she ran, the horns sounded again, and Jeanne felt it again. The call of the hunt. She should have been afraid. She was the prey. Tokagerôh had never sounded so desperate, had never prayed in her ear like he did now. Never begged her to run like he did now. Run. Run. Run! She should have been scared.

But she wasn’t.

Reaching for her pin, she held it tight, ignoring the way it bit into her finger.

To ebb the screaming in her ear Jeanne asked Tokagerôh, as soft as she could, “tell me. Tell me of the Hunt while I run.”

And so he did. The Hunt, he said, was the wilds coming back to the Labyrinth. What she faced until now followed rules. A logic, perhaps twisted and cruel but logic. The King made it all make sense. The King was the Heart.

The Hunt was a thing kept alive by older allegiances, older traditions of the Kingdom. It was a call for blood that the King had to quell time after time after time. A sentient threat that recognized the shifting of the balance and yearned to seize the moment for itself.

It was in her veins even as he spoke. The urge to grow fangs and howl. Her right arm throbbed. It felt heavier, somehow, unbalanced.

When the Hunt came to the Kingdom, he said, only the City and the Castle were safe. Anyone left outside was fair game for the hunting dogs and their party.

For the very first time Jeanne was glad Tamao was behind the thick walls of the Castle. At least from this she was safe.

“We need a house,” Tokageroh was saying. “People know where not to build. We need walls. You have iron. It would make for…”

“Safety?” Though the joy of the hunt sang through her veins she could not run very fast. Treacherous roots tugged at her boots, and the ground crumbled and lied before her. She had fallen into a comfortable jog, still. Like she were coming home.

Tokagerôh laughed, and it was a sharp sound. It buzzed within her ring finger painfully.

“On a night like this, there will be no safety. All we can hope is a place to hide. Maybe they don’t know about you.”

It was a lie, and not a very convincing one. Jeanne was not looking for a house. It was a slow realization as she gripped her weapon. She couldn’t stand her ground in the thick of the woods. She was looking for an arena.

The funeral song of the horns was coming closer. She could barely hear her feet on the ground, or her breath through her throat, but the barking and the horns she heard crystal clear.

A house, Tokagerôh prayed. Four walls, a door, maybe a cellar. Jeanne wished for open space, good clean dirt, the sky. But all she could see was trees.

And then the ground started to gently slope towards the Castle, or what she hoped was the Castle. Her boots slid and slipped down. She had to slow down because she refused to trip and fall. Instead she grabbed onto trees to slow her down, her cape wrapped around her hands. It tore to shreds in a matter of seconds. She jumped rather than ran, focused on her balance. She would not trip.

With every step now the hounds sounded closer. Her arm pulsated all the way to her shoulder. She would not find shelter in time.

One last jump landed her in the shallows of a small stream. She was so hot she barely felt the water hit her calves. So that was it, then.

The dogs, she could hear, were almost on her.

Drawing her pin fully out she glanced at its gleaming edge. The silver wound on her faetouched finger glowed like her veins were filled with mercury. She could see its aura through her skin, all the way up to her shoulder. She remembered the bread still in the bag and the mission that drew her out.

Taking a deep breath, she turned back. Switching hands, she ran the edge of her weapon against her biceps, where she knew the pain would be less, just enough to draw some magic onto her weapon and her shirt. She smeared it on her hands, on her face; she would be seen as what she was now.

 _Be unhinged_ , something sang to her. It wasn’t the forest, it wasn’t Tokagerôh. It was her own blood. _Be flesh and bones and human and fae and both. Scream and cry and yell and make yourself to be_ too much _. Become your own power, flesh and bones and human and goddess. Do not be afraid. Let them fear you._

_Do not let them take you without a fight._

And so as the barking grew close she raised her head and faced the Hunt.


	12. Within your eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Have you ever seen a bloodless revolution?”

Goblin Castle / Ninth Hour

It seemed to her that she stayed there a very long while. In reality, she was there a few long seconds, still warm from the dancing, before the wind caught with her.

Hao did not come back. She expected it to be a trick, somehow, for another nightmarish apparition to take his place. Contrary to what she had said to the Goblin King, it all felt very, very real. Holding one hand in the other, Tamao moved closer to the edge, trying to peer through the storm. There was no rain, but also little visibility this high up. She could see the town far below, and then the Labyrinth, and then what seemed like empty plains.

Jeanne… Where could she be? If she promised to get here… It had been so long already… Could it be that…

No. No, she wouldn’t entertain the thought. Jeanne was fine. Had to be.

The wind screamed at her, tore at her hood. Tamao sat behind the crenellation, considering her options. She had to find a way off this place, first. There was no obvious staircase, no way down that she could glimpse – that was how she’d known it could not be real. And she was right, considering Hao vanished in a shiver of gold.

Which meant she was completely stuck up here.

 _Come on_ , _feet_ , she thought, standing again to try and examine the crenellations. Maybe there were stairs on the outside of the tower… But there were not. All she could see was an indent into the stone, a good couple of feet below her hands, that was perhaps a window.

For a moment, she thought of tearing her veils and make a rope. There was fabric enough on her body, she thought. But she couldn’t tell if it would be able to support her weight, and if it did not, then she would be falling straight to her death. This castle seemed almost nestled in clouds. It would have been at home in those romances she read with Jeanne to improve her French. They were everywhere in her friend’s house, though she so rarely seemed to have time to read them.

Jeanne. Jeanne needed he to get to the Heart. She could not afford to stay stuck here, even if she couldn’t think of a good idea. “I want to get out of here,” she whispered. “I really want to get out of here and find the Heart.”

She closed her eyes for only a second, but when she opened them the platform had opened in front of her. Bewildered, she moved down to a crouch, trying to make herself as stable as she could be, and approached to peer at the hole.

It was entirely dark, and she could not see inside. She brushed against the stone, following the edges. It was as if the hole had always been there, when she knew for a fact that it hadn’t been until she closed her eyes. They had danced on these very stones. They had…

 _In the business of dreams_ , he said. Wishes. When she’d said the words, it had happened. Perhaps she should trust this hole.

Perhaps she did not have to be stupid about it.

A few moments later, with a veil tightly tied to the nearest crenellation, Tamao took a few steps towards the hole. She tested her makeshift harness once last time, shivering as the wind played hard in her hair, then sat at the edge. Her legs dangled in the darkness, not finding any purchase.

Before she decided to wait for the Goblin King, she pushed herself into darkness.

Tamao fell like a rock, her scream swallowed by the wind. She’d expected to easily fall into her harness. Instead, immediately, something broke her fall; something that felt like branches. A second later, she understood the ‘branches’ to be long arms, with hands that grappled at her. It was these hands that kept her from falling to her death, these hands that poked curiously at her harness.

“Well, hello,” she heard, and she watched incredulously as hands in front of her started to mimic a face. The voice came from them, or from behind them.

“H-Hello,” she stuttered, her eyes still wide. She could feel long fingers around her waist, her forearms, her knees. She was kept completely still. “You… You caught me. Thank you…”

The hand ‘gasped’ and growled like a beast, making her tense. “Bah! Rude!”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m sorry!” Had she insulted them somehow? She did not see which of her words may have had that effect, but she really did not want them to squeeze her harder.

“I want to let her go,” said another voice, petulantly.

“I don’t! The Heart is fragile, it could break!”

“There’s another, is there not?”

“The other is gone, though!”

“Shush! We need to ask her.”

“Ask her what?”

“Ask me what?”

The thumbs that made a mouth before her ‘turned’ back to face her, terrifyingly inhuman. The hole they made gaped, dangerously close; behind it she could see only darkness.

“Up or down?”

“What?”

“Do you want to go up or down?”

Tamao blinked. The voices grew louder, a cacophony she struggled to make sense of. She thought of the man upstairs who’d left her on top of the tower alone, of his voice that could get her lungs to go still and her heart to flutter. She thought of Jeanne who had yet to arrive.

“Down! Down, please!”

“She said down!”

“Oh, she said down!”

“Was that the wrong choice?”

Instead of answering her they let go. They did not take her down gently; they just dropped her like a stone, but the fall was too short for her to scream. The veil tore. She fell in a heap, feet first, and then her face slammed into the ground.

Goblin Castle / Tenth Hour

When she regained consciousness, the pain was so brutal she thought her legs were broken. It flared across her entire spine, keeping her pinned to the ground, unable to move, unable to think. But. She had to move. She had to do _something_. Jeanne needed her. Jeanne…

She lost consciousness again.

Slowly she came back to herself. Her entire body was throbbing, but this time it felt… manageable. Endurable. Slowly, she sat up.

The careful sigil the witch had drawn into her palm was glowing red and throbbing just a little. It was odd, to focus on this little pain when her entire body screeched for attention, but it distracted her enough to help her stand.

She was in what appeared to be a study. In fact, it was _the_ study, the one she had hidden in, at the beginning of her adventure. Tamao swallowed. It wasn’t a bad starting point for her search, if the little boy didn’t find her first.

Once she was reasonably sure her bones were not broken – her legs carried her right enough, and she could bend her arms in all the regular ways – Tamao made her way to the main door. However, at the last moment, something made her turn to survey the room.

That was when she saw it. The door to the right of the desk, hidden by a half-drawn curtain. She was fairly certain the curtain had been fully drawn last time – she didn’t even remember registering it. A hidden room…?

She knew what was beyond the main door: a long corridor, exposed to the whims of the resident goblins. She did not, however, know what was beyond this hidden door. It was indeed as good a place as any to begin her search.

As she stepped through the room, her sigil flared to life, throbbing with what felt like urgency. The right choice, then. Bolstered by the energy she felt from her hand, Tamao went around the desk. She could see where she had hidden, not that long ago. No more hiding.

She examined the door critically. It was indeed a hidden door, looking every bit like part of the wall. When it was fully closed, it probably was impossible to distinguish it from the rest of the room. But it wasn’t fully closed. It was left ever-so-slightly ajar.

Her hand burned anew.

She pushed the door open with trembling fingers, breath held in deference. She could feel it, the Heart, very close now. Barely a few steps. The sigil of the witch in her palm pulsated with hunger, and it was terrifying to feel that hunger for herself, too.

She saw the ground first, littered with feathers that were so black they became iridescent. Then she raised her eyes, and she saw him. Hao laid on the ground, his face pale and gaunt. There was something odd with his chest, too; while his garment was white, it had been slashed near the heart, and it was stained golden around the apparent wound. He had his hand folded over it, a meager attempt at protection. Had he no healers? Had she done this? She had not done this. But he was with her then. What happened?

He seemed barely conscious, and Tamao stood stock still at first. She did not dare to move. Had he heard her? Was he… was he alive?

She still felt the thumping of the Heart in her sigil, close, so close. Could it be hidden in this room? With baited breath Tamao stepped in and looked around. It was clearly a bedroom, one of high standing. Close to the one she had woken up in, all of these hours ago. The canopy bed occupied the center of the room, and Hao was partially leaning against it; opposite him was a row of ancient bookshelves filled with dusty tomes and what looked like scrolls. There was an ornate desk by the balcony doors. They must have been able to let in a great deal of light into this bedroom – except for the perpetual twilight that instead bathed her and him. It made the shadows starker, immense, oppressive.

Hao still had not moved. She stared hard in the dim light. His eyes were closed. He was sleeping.

Tamao did not dare close the door. Just in case. Just in case she needed to run.

Instead, eyes on the sleeping form of the man, she started feeling her way through the room, peering into the bookshelves, watching out for kinks in the carpet. So far she was no closer, though the wayfinder still burned in her palm. She ran her fingers across the tomes on the wall, but the titles still all seemed to be written in foreign script. The desk was covered in papers written in the same language. Tamao thought of taking the letter-opener, just in case he woke up. But it didn’t seem at all sharp, and it was smaller than her thumb; she thought better of it. Or perhaps her mind just refused to arm herself. She wasn’t sure she could do it, threaten a man who was wounded.

As she came back from the desk, empty-handed, Hao shifted – a slight thing – and she froze. In the long seconds that followed, she examined his face, the sharp features that had been masked before. In this light he appeared… soft, genuine. There was a heaviness to his sleep, the pain glimmering in the twist of his eyebrows, but he was undeniably handsome. Fine, for a man, with lips that drew the eye. She knew then he would have been perfect for a painting: suggestive and mysterious, but safely kept at bay by the pigments and the canvas. Here she had no such protection, and her heart shivered.

It was hard to deny the raw power emanating from him. Not so much strength, but… charisma. Leadership. Even in the ballroom, before he tore the ballerina to shreds, he had that. He kept the entire ball on the beat of his staff. There was something of a spider’s charm. Graceful and deadly.

After some time spent agonizingly still, Tamao forced herself to move again, creeping closer little by little. Her hand throbbed more as she approached, and though she prayed to discover a box, a book, anything that could be the Heart, she found nothing. There was just the sleeping spider. She so dearly hoped he did not have it on him, that he had put it down since the ball. The witch hadn’t said it would have a guardian. Had not given her any weapons to fight such a man.

As she crept closer the pain in her hand came a crescendo, and she had to let out a long, shuddering breath as she knelt by his side, trying to not stare at his face for too long. She shed her glove slowly, mindful of any whisper of the silk. Her breaths were shallow as she drew her hand close, eyes going from the glowing wayfinder to his face, to make sure he was still sleeping. The sigil’s light was stronger close to his chest, and so she held her breath and brushed against his jacket with trembling fingers, looking for a secret pocket, a seam he would be hiding the Heart in.

She found a button she could undo. The moment she tried to tug the garment open, it unfurled with a murmur, and Hao’s eyes snapped open.

For a split second, they sat there, silent, as if held in time.

Then, slowly, a smirk stretched the pallid King’s lips, and Tamao knew he was indeed a spider.

Tamao tried to jerk backwards only to have him latch onto her wrist, snake-like and precise. “Not so fast. What is this?”

His eyes had shifted to the sigil. It was glowing so bright Tamao could not look at it directly. She tried to slip her hand through his hold, in vein. Hao cupped her palm in his, apparently unbothered.

Tamao swallowed, thought of lying, and thought better.

“I was told,” she breathed instead, “to find the Heart of the Labyrinth. That I would be free if I... If I...”

Hao shifted his gaze back to her, something odd swimming in his eyes. Mistrust?

Then he laughed, and smeared the sigil to nothingness.

“Well,” he said when he had calmed down, “seems you found it. What are you going to do, kill me? Your friend has already taken a nice head start.”

Tamao blinked. Jeanne? Jeanne did that?

Hao did not answer the question plain on her face, and instead stared her down. She could feel her face slowly heat up, until she could no longer hold his gaze, and instead glanced down at the streak of gold on his shirt. “How...?”

“You would like to know, wouldn’t you?”

He let go of her wrist, but Tamao did not move. She could not explain why, but he no longer scared her... overly much. She thought her words over and over, and found no good reason but cowardice to keep them to herself.

“Hasn’t this gone on long enough? You’re... She’s determined.” She took a breath and made herself brave. “Release us.”

She raised her gaze and held his again, ignored the fire in them, did her best to look firm.

“She will never let me go. I have faith in her. We – we are going home.”

He fought her silently for a moment longer, and then sighed. A small victory, she made him look away.

“You understand so little, precious. It is no more in my power to unbind you than it is to heal my wound and take what you will not give. A word is a word.”

She frowned. No, this would not do!

“But... You gave her the challenge. You are the one who took me. You gave her – you gave us a way out.”

He looked towards the window, bitterness touching his face. “I will not help her take you away. She will find this place and earn you back, or she will not. Until then, you are both in my power.”

Tamao swallowed, hard. There was something so... final there. A firmness in him, ice under his falsely warm smiles. Could fire be cold?

“What if I challenged you? Myself?”

He looked at her, an odd softness in his smile as he drew his thumb across the sigil, smudging it to nothingness. Its glow faded, and it felt like an ending.

“You are already mine. You have nothing more to bargain with.”

Jeanne would have protested, would have fought. Tamao was used to powerlessness. But... she owed it to her to try, right? She looked around for something to say. The witch... the witch...

“Why?”

His eyes snapped to her, snake-swift. It was odd, the way he made her feel _watched_. _Be careful_ , his presence seemed to say continually. She struggled to continue, but couldn’t.

“Out with it,” he prompted.

“Why the book? Why entrap us at all? I want to understand why... Why we are here. Why you do the things that you do. I want to know, I want to…”

For a moment he seemed to think, and then he drew her wrist to his mouth. “Do not move.”

It happened too fast for her to realize. He closed his jaws on her finger. There was a sharp pain, and she saw a flesh of red on his mouth. Then he drew her hand to his chest, right where the fabric was ripped. She felt the jagged edges of a wound, and then her brain caught up. Gasping, she tried to struggle, in vain. It felt warm, too warm, the position had her drawn almost right against him. Her finger, she noted, did not hurt as much as she had first thought. Then it did not hurt at all.

“What do – what are you...”

“Watch.”

He released her wrist. Then, with a flourish that did not even seem practiced, he ripped his shirt all the way open and exposed the wound. Or at least, the place where the wound used to be. She was sure her finger was just nicked, barely enough for blood to trickle for a few seconds, and yet there was a raised line gleaming red. Gold flecks all over his chest, but no real wound except for that line. Even that was fading fast.

“Did you...?”

“No. This is all you,” he whispered, eyes on the wound. “Humans have power, here. Your fears, your dreams, your _blood_ powers the Heart of the Labyrinth. The Kingdom thirsts for it, hungers, eternally.”

And the hunger in his eyes sharpened, became a point uncomfortably hot in her belly. Her mouth went dry. She could think of nothing save for rooms always shared, a boy always looking beside her, an existence borrowed. Hao announced an eternal, exclusive need, and it moved her in ways she wasn’t sure she could entertain. She dearly wanted to, for reasons she could not understand herself. She saw it in his eyes, the unsaid words.

Not a challenge, then. A proposal. Like he had proposed her. This was what she could do – perhaps.

But...

“If we are what the Labyrinth requires, then why did the witch send me to kill you? Surely the Heart is as vital as the blood powering it?”

Hao’s eyes flared, and he glanced at the window, as if deliberating.

“I’ll show you,” he decided, and then he gestured for her to move back. Tamao hesitated, then rose. He struggled, and she tried to offer her hand. The snarl was lighting-fast, there and then not, but she still saw it – how much he hated the thought of relying on someone. What mercy was, and what it wasn’t, here.

She did not take her hand back, and he stood without it. His stride showed nothing, no wound, no harm. The bay windows flung open before him, and he led her to the balcony.

Tamao felt her throat tighten. She had spent many sunsets on a balcony not as lavish as this one, beer in hand, Jeanne talking the night away. It was hard sometimes to know whether she talked to impress or just because she just felt this relaxed around her.

It had felt so unique. So precious, this warmth Jeanne brought, the way she looked at her with such attention and care. Like a baby bird that needed protection, and affection, and.

She blinked hard.

Before them lay the Goblin City, alight with the warm glow of lamps and fireflies.

“Lugnasad is celebrated here, too,” Hao said at her side. “Solstices and festivals. Times when the veil is thin. My people go visit yours for a few hours of music and fun. To play a trick or two on mortals who are just a little more susceptible than most.”

Tamao wasn’t sure what to make of that. The concept was not particularly strange to her, but she still wondered. Had he been at their party? There was this stranger who captured Jeanne’s attention. He said the Kingdom thirsted for her. But was it because she was human, or for a more specific reason?

“They are times of change,” he continued. “Of renewals and revolutions. Of blood.”

“Blood?” She couldn’t keep the sudden crack in her voice. He chuckled.

“Have you ever seen a bloodless revolution?”

She glanced down at the dancing streets. There was nothing that could have foretold of a coup brewing. “The witch wants you dead,” she enunciated carefully.

“Of course they do. They are not witches. Just disgruntled curs, hoping to steal their way into the Castle halls.”

There was more than one? She kept the thought for later. Tamao watched him sneer in disgust, and did not buy it.

“Then... then in that case, why are you afraid?”

He laughed, again.

“You snuck into my bedroom, intent on killing me and I should not be wary?”

She grimaced.

“I didn’t… I thought… I was supposed to find the Heart and break it. I thought it was… an object,” she finished with a thousand difficulties under his gaze. He snorted.

“She did not give you a weapon, did she? Just the wayfinder?”

Tamao shook her head, truthfully. What did that mean? Did the witch expect this, too? That she would come to the King’s side unarmed and be caught here? She could have thought they were working together, except she did not think the spite in his tone feigned. This was real, somehow, in the way the dance had not.

She would have spoken again, but there was a low moan in the distance. Some kind of horn, perhaps? Tamao looked, but could not make out much in the twilight.

What she did see was the way Hao immediately tensed. He leaned forward over the bannister, fingers gripping it tight as he scanned the horizon.

“What is it?”

“I should have known,” he spat, leaning back. “Two attempts, so close. The silver slowed me down, so now it’s her turn. Little parasite.”

“Her turn?”

The sheer hatred in his tone frightened her. Jeanne was out there.

“What is it?”

“The Hunt,” he finally admitted. “They convened the Hunt.”

“And that means?”

“That means our dear Challenger is in deep trouble.” He swore under his breath and withdrew something from his pocket. Tamao divined in it a crystal, something shimmery but with no apparent use.

“What are you doing?”

Hao barely listened to Tamao. There was no time to waste if he wanted to gauge the little Challenger’s situation. Her blood was working wonders, and he did not even feel pain when he conjured a crystal from the ether. He immediately raised it before his eyes and gazed into it.

Tamao shifted closer, warm against his open coat. She was timidly peering into it, and he let her. She had saved his life, after all. A little gratitude would not be misplaced.

Inside the crystal was a chaos of what soon promised to be branches, and he winced. The forest. Unseelie territory at its finest, a shortcut to the castle through dangerous uncharted threads. Outside of his immediate power; of course Mathilda would have directed her there.

He knew what he would see then, and for a split second he wondered if he should shield Tamao from it. Explain, frame, before the Challenger stumbled into the picture.

But she was already there, glowing and terrible in her princely clothes. It was too late for explanations.

He heard Tamao gasp at his side. “Jeanne...”

So, her name.

It felt like a hollow victory to earn it this way.

She would not have stood for his taking away the crystal now, would tear his Kingdom asunder if he tried. She would have to see her beloved friend unravel.

 _Jeanne_ stumbled forward, surrounded with what could have been fireflies, of will’o wisps. It was neither. It was much worse.

Their dissonant whispers reached the balcony, and he braced himself.

_What are you looking for?_

It wasn’t a voice, exactly. It was a thousand whispers, each a different knife. There was a path Jeanne was walking, but now that the voices had started she turned to the side. She couldn’t see them, could she? The shadowy forms around her. Only shadows, for now. They had time.

_Why should you?_

Jeanne was starting off the path now. He could see the way her eyes glossed over. Blood was starting to trickle down her ear, too.

_Distractions, distractions, distractions. Does any of it matter?_

There was a flutter near her hand, something twirling at the end of a ribbon. He couldn’t see well enough through the crystal. Another bond? Another entity trying to claim her? This girl would never get to the Castle. She would be in pieces long before she even saw the gates.

By his side Tamao gasped, and grasped at his coat. She had seen the blood trickling down her chin. She could see how red it was, and then how silver. He could still push her back, shatter the crystal, leave the Challenger to wither by herself.

He did not.

_Think of your calling. Or have you forgotten it?_

By the way she turned on her spot, eyes vacant, she had. It was hard to fault her for it. Had Mathilda even warned her? It may have fitted her twisted ideas of fun. Give her to the Hunt, to Marion in her black dress.

The plan was obvious, now that he thought about it.

_Where are you going? You don’t know._ ~~~~

“What is that,” Tamao whispered. “What is she bleeding?”

He looked at her curiously. “What could it be? Her blood, precious.”

What an understatement.

“Why is it grey? She’s – she’s…”

It was as if she did not dare finish. She probably did not, and Hao wished he could do anything to soothe her. To say she was fine in these circumstances was laughable. The shadows around Jeanne were thicker, now. He needed to make his choice, and soon. Leave her be, or…

_Cease your fretting, gentlechild. We will take your distractions, your bonds, your impurities._

There were howls in the wind, now, and the horn, ever closer, though it was surely miles away from them yet. Hao wondered how long the sliver of metal in her hand could hold them back from a weakened, disoriented Challenger. The shadows were binding her now, branches twisting themselves around her like a cocoon. What could her visions be, to absorb her so?

“Jeanne,” Tamao gasped. There was horror in her voice, and a plea. To whom? “Jeanne, don’t go that way.”

_You will be delivered free, virginal, perfect to your crystal throne._

The Challenger was standing still now, hands joined before her, the perfect picture of stone serenity. Had she been a statue she would have been at home in the Labyrinth, bloodshot and nightmarish, gnarly branches surrounding and twisting around her.

“Jeanne,” Tamao pleaded, and they watched her bring her arms up towards an unseeing sky. The act brought the key in front of her eyes. If she only broke it, Hao found himself thinking. If she snapped it in half, she would be transferred back to the Labyrinth, out of these unseelie realms. But she did not seem ready to do so. In fact she did not even seem to see the key.

“Jeanne,” Hao repeated, as if to try the name on.

_Turn away from these flames. Turn away! They will bind you._

Silver blood ran freely down the sides of her head. As the branches wrapped themselves around her midsection, stopping her in her tracks, she brought the key towards her face.

A kiss, now? Hao couldn’t help the sneer.

And yet it was the most curious thing; the moment the key touched her face, the rivulets of blood there, it seemed to melt. It ran through her fingers, staining her hand silver and corroded, and a shiver of life sprung forth from there. Then her hands fell away, and the Challenger fell to her knees. No doubt the effort was too great.

The elf from her key was free.

_They will torment you. They will leave you flesh and bones and human._

It flew around her face, towards the line of her hair. Hao idly wondered if they’d spoken, if it understood what was happening. He knew what was right by the Labyrinth and by himself. He knew that if she gave in it was right to leave her.

There were still whispers, false promises from the roots, but they were too far for Hao to listen to. He felt his choice made, somewhere deep inside, and he sighed.

 _You could be so much more than this_. _You could..._

Jeanne screamed and her body shot forward. She tore through the branches like a living scythe, her every limb sinfully silver. In her path steam rose, and he could see the trees bend away, no doubt trying to avoid her burning. She was magnificent; a sight of flame and fury.

“Jeanne,” he breathed in spite of himself. “Congratulations.”

Beside him Tamao was sobbing with terror and relief.

“Tamao, move back.”


	13. I'll place the moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “After all, what’s a little attempted assassination between friends?”

Forest of the Departed / Eleventh Hour

Hao broke a crystal on the balcony threshold and roughly pulled her through. It felt like stepping into flame; heat washed over her, pinpricks of sharp pain rising from her feet to the top of her scalp. She smelled burnt hair, and in the second she was caught in between places she saw many eyes all looking at her. She tried to scream, but it was already over; Hao pulled her forth into a new world.

It was made of gangly trees and looming rock formations. The laughter of the leaves felt malevolent, somehow.

“Where are we?”

“The Forest of the Departed,” Hao said absently. “It cuts through the wastes outside of the Labyrinth and provides sanctuary for those who are banished from it. Though sanctuary is a grand word, considering you are locked out with everyone else.”

His sentences were twisted, maze-like, and Tamao struggled to follow. He hadn’t let go of her, even now that he was walking. His pace was brisk, and she also struggled to follow. But his hand on her wrist felt like protection, and Jeanne was at stake, so she hurried behind him.

“Why are we not running?”

Why hadn’t he taken them to Jeanne directly?

“Because panic is a meal I do not wish to offer up,” he said enigmatically. “Here the banished decay and die, but they tend to stay on. Their… feelings are strong. For the Labyrinth. For their loved ones. For me,” and Tamao realized these feelings were no doubt not tender ones. “That is what we watched assault your friend. Feelings animating roots, branches, moss. Infesting it. People do not last, here.”

Tamao did her best to fight her mounting panic. This place was a nightmare. Everything outside of the immediate boundaries of the Labyrinth seemed to be. “And Jeanne…”

“Jeanne made it. She beat them back.”

“But…” She hesitated, her thoughts faint. “If she had not?”

“A living husk for their feelings would definitely give them a new range,” he said bitterly. “This is a forest. It presses up against my Labyrinth and attempts to spill in. That is why I have gardeners. I have shears.”

Tamao swallowed. Had the… things that attacked Jeanne during her time in the Labyrinth – what she had seen at the witch’s – been gardeners, of a kind? Shears? She wanted to ask. Did not know how.

“A living host with their combined crystallized strength would march on the Castle with little effort. It would attempt to get to the Heart.”

“You.”

“Yes.”

He was still walking ahead, not waiting for her, not looking back, focused only on the path. Or was it shame that kept his face turned away? “Your world is so dangerous,” she whispered.

A bitter laugh answered her. “You have no idea.”

“Why make it so?” She couldn’t help but plead. “Why – why is everything so dead, here? Why banish people at all?”

He laughed again. “Distraction will get us killed. No more questions.”

Tamao pursed her lips, anger tearing through her chest. Oh, that was a _great_ idea. No more questions. No explanations necessary for the women he had stolen away. In her emotion she went further.

“Is that why you brought the book to Jeanne?”

He whirled around, stared at her with obscure annoyance and something else. Something perhaps like longing. “If you want us to get to your friend, we should keep this discussion for later,” he repeated.

“Why aren’t we hurrying, then? You said she was in trouble. What if she gets hurt because we are not running?”

Hao sighed and turned back to the path. “We cannot. The Forest is focused on her and the Hunt for now. If they sense us, if they sense me trying to help the Challenger, it will aid the Hunt and force us back. I am using all of my strength to keep us hidden.”

The woods around them did not, indeed, seem to pay them any mind at all. It’s wood, Tamao’s rational mind supplied, helpfully. It can’t _pay mind_ to anything. But this wood could, she was sure of it. She could see the branches stretching through the path behind them. Leaves brushing against each other. Parodies of embrace and life.

“How will we find her, then,” she asked. “Jeanne?”

“There is only one path through the forest. Focus on her and we –“

Loud crashes, somewhere on their right. Tamao froze.

Before Hao could stop her, she called out Jeanne’s name.

“Tamao, don’t call for her,” she heard, from her companion. Somehow the name compelled her to silence, her jaw slack and unable to move. But she was not compelled to inaction.

Howls followed. Dogs, wolves? The horns, still, so close now.

Tamao tore herself free from the Goblin King’s grip and shot towards the trees, chanting Jeanne’s name again and again in her head. Jeanne was fine. She would be fine. She went through the forest’s trial and came out fine, didn’t she? She would –

Her feet brought her crashing through the line of trees and into what she thought was a clearing, and she saw her.

Jeanne was there, maybe thirty feet away. She stood in the shallows of a stream, wrapped in unholy silver, a glow that made her skin look even more sickly and pale. Ethereal. Her hair was wild around her; she was clad in muddy rags and welded what seemed like knives in her sword hand. Tamao had a wild flash, a picture Jeanne showed her, depicting her in fencer’s garb ready to parry. She stood like that now, panting.

Around her were corpses. Animalistic and bleeding dark in the twilight. Dogs, Tamao saw, horses too, with wild eyes and wilder wounds. And, in front of Jeanne, another body, this one smaller. This shape more familiar. It lay broken on the ground, thick golden braids like a noose around her neck. Clothes like a black dress, long pale legs stained with what could be mud or blood.

Jeanne whirled around, and Tamao realized she’d called her name. Tried, at least; her jaw was still not hers, and all that came out was a gurgle of fear. There was more mud – _blood –_ on Jeanne’s face, and her sword hand was streaked silver up to the elbow. What was that? What was in her hand?

The girl with Jeanne’s face scanned the embankment with suspicion, and then went stiff. “Tamao!”

Tamao sighed in relief. It was her voice. It was her. She wanted to call back, to talk, but her mouth still wasn’t hers. Instead she took a few steps towards her, desperate to make sure her friend was really there, was really alive. Raising her dress, which she now realized was not much better than Jeanne’s attire, she made for the water.

“Tamao!”

“Tamao, wait,” came the Goblin King’s voice as his hand settled on her shoulder. Immediately, she froze, again compelled by something that was entirely alien and entirely overpowering. “You can talk,” he added, and she suddenly regained the control of her jaw.

Tamao looked back at him, ready to protest, when she saw his grim face. He stared at the massacre opposite, unreadable. “She needs to be the one crossing,” and his voice was far too gentle for the cruel words.

“Are you mad?” Tamao wrenched her arm free once again, but her feet were stuck to the ground. “She may be wounded, there’s blood everywhere, I need to get to her!”

“She needs to be the one crossing,” he repeated sharply.

Upon seeing him, Jeanne took her stance again, knives raised. In this light Tamao struggled to differentiate between hand and weapon. There was no venom in her voice, but harshness, determination. “Let her go,” she called, her voice a storm upon the water.

“I will,” he replied amicably. “Come here, and I will. Or would you rather have an attempt at my heart again?”

Jeanne did not move. There was fire in her eyes, and her aura seemed to flare. It felt feral and dangerous, a beast cornered. Tamao’s heart lurched, and she waited for the threat, the violence.

“Please,” she said, not knowing whom to plead. “Please.”

Jeanne glanced at her, and the feral expression on her face faded a little.

“Please,” Tamao repeated. “You found me. You did it. Come here.”

There was a long pause where it seemed Jeanne struggled to understand the words, and then she nodded. Dropping her arm, she started wading through the waters. They came to her waist at the deepest of the stream, and Tamao tensed, worrying the current would sweep her away. But Jeanne did not seem to be in any trouble at all.

Hao’s hold tightened for a short second. As Jeanne submerged herself into the waters, her glow faded. It did not take all the mud off, but she did try to clean herself as she went, using her left hand to water her cheeks. Tamao refused to consider why the mud washed away red.

And then Jeanne was on their side, and she smiled, and once more she seemed small and warm, like she was before it all went sideways. Tamao ran, and Hao let her. Jeanne opened wet arms and hugged her tightly. Tamao hugged back just as tight, her heart pounding at the sight of scratches and gashes along her friend’s back and legs. She didn’t question, didn’t admonish, just held her. “I was so worried, but you did it. You’ve done it. You found me,” she whispered, and Jeanne drew away. With her left hand she brushed Tamao’s wild hair from her face, inspecting her all over for scratches or explanations like her own were nothing.

“Your dress,” she mumbled. “Where… Who…?”

“It’s a long story,” Tamao replied in kind. “But I’m here now. We’re both here now. Come, let’s get to the shore, you’ll catch your death.”

Jeanne was meek and pliant in her arms, easy to lead to the grassy ledge where Hao waited. Tamao sent him a wary glance. Jeanne seemed so weak suddenly. She didn’t want the King to harass her.

She wasn’t alone on that front. From a spot behind Jeanne’s ear suddenly came forward a very little elf, face red.

“Back off, Goblin King! Our thirteen hours aren’t over!”

Hao raised an eyebrow at the elf and attempted to pluck it from the air, but it managed to dodge. “The key,” he said slowly. “You were meant to be her key. How did you…”

“She freed me! She did that, when you burned us over and over again,” he spat, all venom. “I know our time. It hasn’t run out.”

“It hasn’t,” Hao conceded. “I brought her wished away here. Do you think I would have done so if I did not mean to help?”

The elf stared suspiciously. Jeanne, sitting down on the grass, seemed completely spent, and Tamao didn’t dare touch her. She shook, Tamao realized. “Jeanne…?”

“Adrenalin crash,” her friend diagnosed quietly. “I just –“

“Yes, what did you just?” The Goblin King crossed his arms and stared down at her. “You have accomplished a very peculiar thing. Do you realize?”

Jeanne blinked blankly, breathing deeply to try and calm her shakes.

“You’re exhausting her,” the elf cried. “Leave her alone!”

“He’s right,” Tamao said, though she hated the way his mouth twisted in disgust. “She needs to rest. How do we get to shelter?”

Hao sighed and conjured a crystal. “Well, I guess I do not have much of a choice, do I? Let’s go to the Castle.”

Jeanne looked up sharply, and their gazes locked. Tamao did not know what it meant, but it clearly meant _something_. “Jeanne?”

The other girl did not reply. Hao’s mouth twitched. “Come on.” Then he threw the crystal at their feet, and suddenly they were elsewhere.

Goblin Castle / Twelfth Hour

The moment they arrived Jeanne stumbled backwards and into a chair. The tiny elf floating above her gasped in alarm and floated down to her left hand, as if to make sure she was still alive.

“I still can’t believe she freed you,” the Goblin King said from where he stood.

“Why,” the elf rasped, “because I’m not worth it? Because she didn’t want to kill someone even if it made her journey more difficult?”

“Because she struck me as a selfish, self-important brat, still not quite ready to come home,” he corrected. Tamao frowned, but Jeanne did not seem too bothered.

“Please don’t fight him, Tokageroh. I need him to bring us back home, after all.”

The elf turned back towards her, worried, while Hao chuckled. Jeanne took a deep breath and sat straighter to look him in the eye. “I did it,” she announced, plainly.

“What did you do?”

He was smiling.

“I made it through the Labyrinth. I found Tamao and reached the Castle. She’s free now.”

Hao looked at her, seemingly dubitative. “To say you did all of that is a little arrogant, wouldn’t you say? And I just told your key friend that maybe you _weren’t_ a selfish, self-important brat.”

Jeanne shook her head. “No matter. Is she or is she not free?”

Tamao frowned and knelt before her friend. “Jeanne, what are you…?”

That was when she saw it. It wasn’t knives in the Challenger’s hand. It wasn’t _weapons_.

It was her hand.

Where there had been normal, warm fingers when they’d parted, now rose five terrifying claws. Longer than normal fingers, with sharp nails that she saw retract unnaturally. They gleamed silver. Metal. Who had done that to her? Was that what she’d wounded Hao with?

Jeanne saw her gaze and followed it down. With a sharp _no_ she hid her hand behind her, but it was too late; Tamao had seen. Slowly, as gently as she could, she tugged on her wrist and forced the clawed hand into the open. Her own callused fingers followed the sharp ridges, careful not to press down.

“This is…”

“A long story,” Jeanne finished, closing her hand so that the claws could not endanger Tamao’s. “It… used to be a pin, like you use with your hats. I think when I fought the Hunt, it… I was bleeding.”

She glanced at Hao, who was surreptitiously staring at the wall. “It was bleeding,” she repeated. “The iron did something to it.”

“It would, yes. Why do you think the witch gave it to you?”

But the witch hadn’t seen her wound, had she? She meant to hurt him with it. The Goblin King. The Lord of Feathers. The Fey.

“Did it do that because of what you did to me?”

That terrifying moment in the oubliette. A poisoned gift, had she thought before. Her ring finger now stood, articulated but pure silver from its root, a claw quite unlike the others. More dangerous. The gift had spread further up her arm, twisting like vines or perhaps veins. She could see it now, her clothes in tatters. She thought she’d want to tear at it, open herself up; but it didn’t hurt, didn’t even itch. It felt like part of herself.

Hao’s eyes softened in a way she hadn’t quite seen before. “What exactly do you think I did?”

Jeanne opened her mouth, and then thought about it. “You replaced the finger I lost to your beasts.”

Tamao let out a small gasp, and Jeanne squeezed her hand feebly. It was fine. She was fine. Before any comfort she needed answers.

Hao had tilted his head to the side, as if listening for a cue.

“I helped, yes. But what I gave you was a spark, rather than a seed.” He seemed to know how she had considered the thing. It had looked like that, too.

“A spark.” Like in a fire.

Fire, she knew, was not a thing. Not in the way wood and stone and water were things. Fire was an _event_.

Of course, fire needed heat, often that of a spark, to start. But fire also needed the right environment, and something to burn. _Ignited your soul_ , he said.

She… wasn’t sure she followed.

“You’re saying that this wouldn’t have happened in our world.”

“That, too.”

“And you are saying that I somehow am the right kind of… fuel.”

His smile thickened, but didn’t turn cruel. Instead, it seemed… proud. Jeanne wondered what he was proud of, exactly.

“Is that why you gave me the book?”

Hao considered his words, and Jeanne held her breath, and Tamao cradled her human hand in hers.

“I think,” Hao said at length, “that the book found you. It found you when you were little and at the back of that convention, and it found you again when you were ready.”

A question formed in the back of her throat, something of a _why_. But right then there was a thunderous clap, and she glanced away from him just in time to see the doors of the room thrown open.

There stood a woman Tamao only knew as the witch. She wore no veils, but thick black clothes that seemed padded. Like armor, of a kind. In her left hand she had a long trident she was pretending to use as a walking stick.

Hao knew better. Turning from the two girls at his side, he opened his arms.

“My dear Kanna. What may I do for you?”

“You cheated,” the witch spat. With her trident she pointed towards Jeanne, who was struggling to stand. “She did not get here by herself.”

Jeanne bristled beside Tamao, still glowing silver and unholy. Still half-wild, even doused with running water. Hao did not have to wonder if Kanna saw it. Instead he pretended to look for someone, head tilted.

“Tilda could not be bothered to come?”

Kanna’s face closed up even more, a storm brewing that he did not care to see break.

“She has it right, you know,” he said amicably. “None of this is your business. It would be such a shame to lose all three of you in one day.”

This hit true, and she snarled. Bloody cur, he thought, to himself.

Kanna took a few steps towards them. “She killed Marion. I want her blood.”

He laughed.

“You shall have nothing and contend yourself with it. You lost your rights to Marion a long time ago.”

Tamao and Jeanne frowned, and he almost could see the wheels turning in their heads. Precocious things, the both of them.

“She is of the Hunt if she is anything,” Kanna persisted. “Anyone caught –“

“I doubt you could qualify her as caught,” Hao interjected distractedly. “Prey and predator can switch places so easily sometimes.”

Jeanne’s claws unfolded silently as she stepped in front of Tamao. Another reason for Mathilda not to come. She surely would never have been able to bear that something of hers killed Marion.

Kanna’s eyes narrowed. “You forget who I am. Weapons meant to kill your kin will not make me tremble.”

Hao smiled.

“And yet Marion lies dead.”

Tamao paled significantly, having followed everyone’s eyes to Jeanne’s hand and the glimmer of metal in it. Perhaps she now remembered a little too well the red-blooded doll on the forest floor. Did it only click for her then, who Marion was? What she was?

Kanna, visibly holding herself back, spat a curse. Hao raised an eyebrow.

“How inelegant.”

“You can stuff it. You are the one who brought her here. _You_ reunited her with her wished away.” He could hear it in her voice, the rage at how unfair this all was, how dare he do it for them and not for her. “What happened, mighty King? Sudden case of,” and she glanced at his slashed shirt, “ _bleeding heart_?”

Hao laughed. She had always been delightful.

“You tried me,” he reminded her. “You tried to capture the Challenger and the wished away for your own attempt at a revolution. Fresh dreams bowing to old ones.”

Kanna shook her head. “We were more faithful to the Labyrinth than you could ever hope to be. We hindered their progress, we didn’t bring her _into_ the Castle.”

“No, you are right. After all, what’s a little attempted assassination between friends?”

She scowled, and the clouds tightened around the place. Hao was glad to have brought Jeanne and Tamao in the center of his castle, the Escherian Stairwells. A perfect representation, he supposed, of the grandeur and freedom of the Goblin King. Stairs were for most people an unnecessary expense. Stairs separated the common folk from their royalty.

To say this place was an illustration of the concept was to miss entirely the point. This place _was_ the concept, pushed and twisted to its extreme.

The door Kanna had come through opened in the middle of the room. Below her and above her were staircases facing all directions, leading nowhere and arriving everywhere. She faced the trio, but her platform was not connected to theirs. In fact, theirs was raised slightly above, for of course no reason at all.

The two women at his side had been too focused on each other and on him to note the strange space. He wondered if Tamao understood he had taken them to the place she had been told to look for. The place where any pretense of logic and armor fell away. But her wayfinder was smudged away.

“Now, Kanna,” he spoke again, “what is it you want from me? Marion’s death is not yours to avenge. What happens to my Challenger and her wished away is also none of your concern.”

“It is if it dooms the Labyrinth,” she spat. “Whatever your reasons are, you are willing to let them go. You are willing to lose even more ground to the wastes. That is unforgivable.”

“My, my. Don’t you think you are assuming a great deal, here? I haven’t sent them back just yet.”

“Then prove it.” Kanna tapped the butt of her trident in the ground. “Give her the peach, see what her answer to that proves to be.”

Hao sighed. Of course. It was traditional, he supposed, though hardly what he had in mind, and hardly what would prove best for his current Challenger. He also knew she was right, in that twisted way of hers. When he made his choice he knew he would throw the Labyrinth off-balance. He had still done it, but the results were plain to the eye: he had unbalanced the realm. The signs were discreet yet; he wondered if they could sense it.

“No? Scared?”

“I haven’t been scared in a long time, Kanna.”

“Then do it. Have her go through the trial. Let that be the proof that she has conquered you.”

Tamao cleared her throat, sounding fragile but determined. “So you are saying that whoever partakes of this last trial wins the Challenge?”

Jeanne looked at her, eyes questioning and alit with unholy fires, but Tamao had her gaze set on Hao. He thought he knew where she was going. It was a gamble, for sure, and a losing one for him. And yet.

He did not allow himself a smirk. He could not let Kanna see.

“Yes,” he said, disdainful. “This is how you win the Challenge.”

Jeanne nodded. Then she thrust her hand out. “Give it to me. I’ll do it.”

Kanna sneered at Hao. “You cannot be the judge of it. You may be King, but you have already cheated for them. You’d give her away and destroy the Labyrinth just to spite me.”

“She isn’t yours,” Hao snorted. What kind of King did she take him for? “There is no law saying I keep one and you the other.”

“You’d still blind yourself to spite my hand.”

“The Heart of the Labyrinth will ensure it continues to beat,” Tamao said, surprising even him. That, he allowed himself a smile for.

Oh, well. What best way to spite her than to have her see everything? To show, once and for all, that he had no part in the play except that of a pleased audience? Jeanne was the Challenger, and she was the one changing, not him.

And.

“You may come along, Kanna. You may not interrupt. You may not influence. You may just watch.”

Her stormy face told him she hoped for more, but he was firm. In the end she broke away from his gaze, and he produced the peach.

“For you,” he said, holding it out towards Jeanne. She eyed it, mistrust obvious on her face.

“The final part of your Challenge.”

She nodded, eyes still on the peach, and took it. Her free arm was wrapped around Tamao.

“Whoever partakes wins the Challenge,” she repeated quietly, examining the fruit as if she expected it to rot on the spot somehow. She’d heard Tamao’s words, too, it seemed.

She smiled.

“To us,” she muttered, biting into the fruit. Then she drew Tamao to her and pressed their lips together, sharing the juices and flesh with her. Kanna gasped, obviously about to yell, but she was too late.

Already the two women were dropping in each other’s arms. Hao made sure they did not break their necks falling.

Then, severe:

“Shall we?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Along cold iron, one of the things known to harm Irish fae are streams of running water.


	14. I move the stars for no one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I fought all this way to bring you home, and I will. If you want.”

Aboveground / Thirteenth Hour

Jeanne opened her eyes to her own dimly-lit bedroom. Her curtains were drawn to only let in a sliver of sharp white light across her midsection. It settled on her medical posters. By pure instinct she went through the many bones of the hand, using her left to follow the many ridges and bumps of her right.

_Scaphoid, trapezium, thumb metacarpal, proximal phalange, distal phalange, trapezoid, metacarpal, proximal, middle, distal phalanx, ring metacarpal…_

She stopped there, tested the warm and soft skin there like there should have been something else.

With a sigh, she rose and pushed her wayward hair out of her face. Barefoot she made for the kitchen and started a pot of tea under the neon lights. It was a comfortably large space, with two bar stools close together. She had oranges in the fridge and she went for one; her hand hesitated in the cold space, as if expecting a shape that wasn’t there. A pack of… but she never bought packs. Marco had drilled into her head that sugar would rot her from the inside out, and alcohol was even worse. She never bought packs of anything.

But Tamao did.

It was like a scalding shower. Forgetting her tea, she closed the fridge and marched through her flat. There was no foreign but familiar handbag in her living room. The ceiling light was intact and worked, bathing her in cold and lifeless light. In her bedroom there were no pictures of them together, no flower in the vase Tamao had given her because the vase was not there. It was like she had never come in at all. Like in the woods, where everything begged her to forget them.

A buzzing sound brought her to her living room. It was her phone on the low table, announcing she had just missed a call. Jeanne took the thing of metal in her right hand, and her finger did not protest. There was a memory of so dearly wishing for it, back in the Labyrinth. Now it felt almost dangerous.

She pressed a few buttons, and was soon subjected to the voice she had longed for when she was lost and bleeding. Her tutor was unmistakable.

 _“As discussed, I acquired two seats for the_ Orfeo _tonight. Young Diethel will be there. Critics say it is masterfully executed. We can talk about your placement at the hospital. I will be at your door at 6:37. The website says no dress code but I settled on black tie.”_

Jeanne let the message run out and glanced at the corner of her phone. It was 4:56, and she was in her summer pajamas, unwashed, untamed. She needed to get a move on immediately. She needed to…

Her eyes moved to the balcony, where she saw Hao for the first time. To the spot on the couch where Tamao had been. She wasn’t there anymore. And she was nowhere in Marco’s plans. Not that she could grieve him for it. She had never had the bravery to introduce her properly. To explain why she was so important.

She dialed him back, and was not surprised to hear the pre-recorded answering machine. He was probably still at the hospital.

After everything, it was nice to hear his voice. To take strength in his unwavering presence, his permanent rigidity. He had been her rock all her life. She simply had no vocation for stone.

“Good evening. I have to apologize. I will not be able to come tonight.”

Suddenly a beep, and he came online. He must have been shaving, actually; she could hear the whirring of the razor. She imagined him, showered and dressed, a beard of white covering his already smooth cheeks, swearing as he jumped for the phone with his hands full of cream.

“Oh, it is nice to hear your voice,” was all she said, and she was honest, because it was. The idea of him, entrenched into normality, forever happy in this human world she did not want for herself. He would be alright without her, she just knew it.

“What’s that about not coming tonight?”

“Exactly what I said,” Jeanne said patiently. Then, because she was generous, she gave an explanation: “A friend needs me.”

“What?”

He swore under his breath, in his sunny Italian, and the buzzing stopped.

“Actually, I need her. I need them both. I have to go. But I love you.”

“ _What_?”

His voice took on a high anxious note, and she fought back sudden tears. This was to be a fare-thee-well, and she wanted to hear it, the thing he never really said openly.

“I will always love you. Can you say it, too?”

“What is this all about?”

She took in a deep breath, felt the last chains fall.

“Please, Marco.”

A silence on the other end of the line.

“I love you too,” he said, tentatively. “Now can you tell me what this is about?”

She did not. Placing her phone face down on the table, she stood straight and gathered her determination. Then she strode to the balcony and flung it open.

Beyond it awaited the throne room. Cold slabs of stone were slashed through by a long, blood-red carpet that led to two thrones. In these sat two figures.

On the right was Hao, the Goblin King, in all his glory. He wore a thing of white, feathered and shimmering. The grace and ferocity of a swan. Beside him, Tamao, too, could have been likened to a swan. Except hers would have had to be black, like the gown she wore. Jeanne’s eyes were drawn to her necklace, a choker-like pendant that just begged to be torn from her pale neck.

Jeanne looked down at herself, at the silvery flower blooming from her right hand up to her shoulder. A flurry of knives, of claws. She was still clad in her grey pajamas.

With an exhale she took a few steps forward and knelt before the couple. Her eyes naturally found the floor, their shoes, boots that were on the edge of human. She could hear the ticking of a clock nearby, but dared not look up at it.

Tamao spoke first, and it was like a song, one that froze Jeanne where she knelt while the black queen moved to meet her. Then she squatted in front of her, seized her chin, and their eyes met; Jeanne saw her Tamao there, but also something else, something cold and doubtful.

“You have gone through so much to bring me home. But would you fight so hard for me there? Tell me, Jeanne.”

Jeanne looked at her and saw what she hadn’t done. All that Tamao would have needed since they met, all that she had not given. _I would. I would. I fought all this way to bring you home._

The answer bubbled out of her, inexorable though unbidden.

“I fought all this way to bring you home, and I will. If you want.”

Tamao narrowed her eyes in a gesture that felt much too close to Hao. Jeanne glanced at him, and he was leaning forward on his seat, raptured, venomous.

Jeanne continued, carried by her own heart pounding in her ears. “If going home is what you desire we will go. But it is not what I want the most.”

“What do you desire?”

She saw Hao mouth the words, but Tamao was the one speaking them. Had her ploy not worked? Was she the only one undertaking this Challenge, after all? Or perhaps Tamao needed him to help her say what her heart really thought. Tearing her gaze from him she stared at Tamao and let the truth cut through the veil.

“What I really want is to stay here. With the both of you. Each under our own power.”

Tamao frowned, thrown off the bitter but confident stride. Beyond Hao’s enchantment there Tamao was, also bitter, also doubtful, but naked. She stalled, hesitated, settled on a tiny “why” that was entirely hers.

Jeanne swallowed.

“This place is where I realized how immature I was. How foolish and mean to you. You deserve better. It makes me want to be better, for you. To do better by you. It is where I realized I was in love with you. How could I not want to stay?”

She raised her head to stare at Hao, refusing to give in to the pounding in her ears, to even look at Tamao, yet.

“I won your Challenge. I ran your Labyrinth. I refused your gift, so it holds no power over me. You cannot influence me to say I feel for you, too, so I say it freely. I am here under my own volition and power. And I love you.”

He stared at her, and she almost expected him angry, but he was not. Instead he smiled, like he was proud. She smiled back, knew herself human and more than that in his eyes.

Turned back to Tamao, who was pink all over and speechless.

“I have something for you.”

She reached into a bag that had not been there a second ago and liberated the loaf of bread given to her by the pumpkin gang. Tamao’s eyes followed her hand and widened in confusion. From Hao Jeanne felt a twinge of annoyance. Real or faked? She could not say.

“It is real bread, and I paid for it. It is mine to give away and I will demand no payment for it.”

Tamao did not seem to know what to do with that, or with the bread. Jeanne felt her chest tighten. She could not be too late.

“You must be hungry.”

No pressure, no judgment in her voice, though she worried. She could tell something vast and violent was washing over her friend. Over her more-than-friend. She would be patient, she who never before had been.

Finally Tamao broke into her fragile smile and reached out for it.

There was no spark, no hurt when their fingers brushed against each other. Tamao brought the loaf to her lap, and then carefully broke it into three distinct, lopsided parts. One part stayed where it was, crumbs breaking the vast expanse of black that was her dress. One she gave back to Jeanne, and Jeanne dared not refuse it. One she held out towards Hao.

He looked at her like she was a lunatic, and Jeanne almost laughed, though she understood why. It had been almost thirteen hours since Tamao ate, if she had been steadfast; she must be ravenous. Plus, this was human bread, humanly harvested, even if by a witch and her constructs. He had no need for it.

Tamao insisted, pushing the brown piece in his hands.

“You helped us,” she commented out loud.

Jeanne blinked. He blinked.

“Not by that much.”

They were not done, either, his eyes seemed to say. Still, Tamao held out the bread, and Jeanne saw her fight to find the right words.

“If we go home,” she ended up saying, “will the Labyrinth collapse?”

Hao’s eyes narrowed.

“That is none of your concern.”

There was venom in his voice, and yet she did not flinch.

“It is if I make it so.”

They stared at each other for so long Jeanne did not dare breathe. Something had happened there; something she was not privy to. Tamao knew Hao in ways she did not. There was no jealousy at the thought, oddly enough; it was fine that they all knew each other differently. Hao had not known the warm evenings of studying around beer and tea. Tamao did not know what she looked like frightened and hurt. Things could be nice that way.

After a heated battle of gazes, Hao folded, and accepted the bread. Jeanne felt a brutal surge of affection and pride in them both.

“A human gift,” he said slowly, carefully.

Tamao nodded. “Free of attachment,” she confirmed. “Unless you want it to. We will each stay here, under our own power. Jeanne and I will sustain this place.”

 _And you will sustain us_ , Jeanne thought, but did not say it. It was on Tamao’s shoulders, now.

Hao smiled thinly, at first, and then it cracked into a childishly gleeful grin. He bit into the bread, and then turned to look at someone behind Jeanne.

“Will that do, Kanna of the Goblin City?”

Goblin Castle / Thirteenth Hour

And just like that they were back at the standstill, in the Escherian staircases of the Goblin Castle. Back, but not exactly the same as before: they each held their piece of bread. Jeanne glowed silver again.

The witch stared all of them down, eyes narrowed, mouth curled into an ugly fury.

“Fey, human, hybrid, thinking you found a caveat in your merry-go-round. You three disgust me,” she spat. “You most of all,” she told Hao.

Jeanne opened her mouth, but Tamao stepped up, as if feeling the need to be the one to defend them this time.

“We won,” she said quite clearly. “The three of us won. That is what happened. You can go.”

And Jeanne felt it, the power in her voice, the world twisting to fit her humanity. To suit her desires. Tamao’s power, red and human. It was hard not to smile.

“We won,” Tamao repeated.

Kanna lunged for her.

Hao shouted. Tamao, instead of dodging, spread her arms wide in front of them and was backhanded across the platform. Her body flew limp, right over the edge, and Jeanne howled.

“Tamao!”

But Kanna was in between them and the edge, and she pounced on them. There was only one of her and two of them, but they had never fought together before, and it showed. Jeanne wished for something longer than her claws, to rely on her fencing training; instead she had to come closer to hope for anything, but Kanna’s trident kept her away.

Hao had no such reservation. From the ether he pulled a thing of light, a great bow that he plucked at with no effort at all. You’d have thought the range rendered it useless, and yet three arrows raced to the witch. One ricocheted against the trident; one fell into the ether.

One struck her leg, and the witch cried out, a sharp flower blooming on her skin. Red, Jeanne saw. Human. Like.

Taking advantage, she advanced on her, trying to wrestle the weapon away.

“Jeanne,” Hao called sharply. “I can’t aim with you in the way.”

“I have it,” she called back, “I…”

She didn’t have it. Kanna elbowed her in the jaw, and then the butt of the trident tried to rip into her. Jeanne dropped into a crouch to avoid the trident teeth coming her way while Hao whirled past her to fight, but his leg caught in hers, and Kanna slapped him away.

“You,” she growled. “You I have something special for.”

And from her clothes she drew what looked like a small veil of starlight. Neither Jeanne nor Hao had the time to react; Kanna threw it at him. Jeanne threw an arm up, and it raked against her flesh, tearing into it, unstopped. The moment it connected with its rightful target, the Goblin King howled and fell in a heap on the floor. Jeanne tried to go to him, but already the witch was on her, wrenching her away from that side of the platform. With a yell Jeanne clawed at her, and Kanna let go, sending her to the ground, where she rolled and tried to find her feet. The glint of the trident told her what was coming, and she pushed herself in between Kanna’s legs. The weapon dragged across the stone floor with a terrifying shriek, and Jeanne grabbed the witch’s clothes to push herself upwards, claws aiming for her face. She was too close for the trident, now, and intended on using that to her advantage.

Her claws found skin and tore while her human hand held on to the witch, refusing to be thrown back. Kanna howled and grabbed at her hair, but Jeanne held on, and tore, and tore.

And then the witch kneed her in the groin. Jeanne let go and stumbled back, shock radiating through her entire body. She saw the glint of the trident, threw her clawed arm up to block.

Pain flared through her arm but she powered through, flinging it away from Kanna’s hand. Then they were only them, hands against hands, human bodies brawling.

Kanna was, however, bigger. Stronger, too. She batted away the claws reaching for her face and punched Jeanne in the nose, forcing her back; her next blow narrowly missed. Jeanne flung her body into the woman’s midsection, getting her to the ground. Kanna’s head bounced against the stone and the sound was holy to the ear. The witch let out a sound and seemed to be done, hands raised to beg for mercy.

Jeanne stopped, hand raised for another reason. She considered it, this helpless, half-mad witch, the instinct in her that said to finish it and kill her. It frightened her, that she wanted this. For an infinite second she stayed still, lost in Kanna’s eyes. The witch had blue eyes. The witch had Marco’s eyes, something told her, and she instantly knew it wasn’t true. And yet.

Jeanne dropped her hand. “Stay there. Don’t move,” she said darkly. She needed to free Hao, find Tamao, make sure they were okay.

But the moment she tried to turn away, a rustle told her of her mistake. She tried to twist away, but the witch grabbed her neck, boxed her soundly in the face, and flung her towards the void.

Jeanne hurtled beyond the edge and rolled down a flight of stairs, landing on her back a few feet below. Her body erupted in agony, a starburst of pain keeping her pinned. Kanna, looking feral and twisted, appeared on top of the stairs and started to descend, trident in hand. “You brats know nothing,” she raved. “You think you won? That this was worth your while? You were _lucky_ , and you had help. Why should you receive help? We had nothing. We weren’t fucking lucky.”

Jeanne could not move. All she could do was stare at the human woman with ripped clothes that took step after step towards her.

“All I had was thirteen hours and an entire court tearing my girls to pieces!”

Jeanne shuddered; the truth was suddenly self-evident.

“You wished them away,” she whispered, thinking of Mathilda in her time bubble, of the other girl riding the Hunt and coming for her. “You wished them both away and you didn’t win.”

“There is no winning,” Kanna cried. “Don’t you see? Don’t you fucking see? He’s a monster. He’s not your friend. He doesn’t feel love, or emotion. He’s using you, just like he used us until we didn’t work anymore. You’re a tool.”

She was above her now, and Jeanne struggled to sit up on her elbows. Look her end in the eye. Her legs weren’t answering. Her entire body was a symphony of pain, a shivering wreck. Adrenalin crash, she diagnosed. Fat good that did her.

A tool. Jeanne remembered sitting at the back of her foster parent’s conferences, looking cute, looking perfect. The pride of his life, the jewel to his crown.

She thought of the magician who drew her away from the crowd.

“Don’t worry,” Kanna added, the trident positioned to section Jeanne’s body right in two. “I won’t let him. I’ve failed enough girls. I’ll make sure you are set free, and this place goes to its rightful hell.”

“Watch out!”

A new voice. Tamao’s voice.

Jeanne rolled away blindly, falling to the next flight of stairs, and half a second later she heard a sickening crunch. Her fall left her winded, and too woozy to move. She was vaguely aware Kanna must have gone down, but she didn’t move. Hurried footsteps followed. A leap.

“Jeanne!”

Tamao was down with her on the platform. Warm hands rolled her to her back, and Jeanne realized how many of the steps were bathed in silver blood. Hers.

“It’s nothing,” she said soothingly, sitting up just a little too fast. “Just the fall. What did you…?”

Tamao shifted with the room, and on what was now the ceiling she saw Kanna, her body cracked open like a glass by the heavy slab of stone that had fallen over her. There was no way Tamao had pushed that on her own, had she?

“I didn’t know what to do,” Tamao said, looking green and helpless. “Or rather… Rather… I did. I couldn’t let her hurt you.”

Jeanne raised her moonlit hand and ran it against Tamao’s cheek, smearing it silver in turn. They smiled at each other, and Jeanne wrapped her arms around her, tight. The embrace was maybe a tad too tight, actually, but she needed it that way. Making sure they were both still whole and safe.

“She hurt you,” she remembered. “You went over. How…?”

“I grabbed onto the ledge. I… I managed to hold on, but I couldn’t get back up on it.”

Jeanne imagined it. Being stuck there, hanging by the skin of her fingers, listening to the fight going on inches away. Why hadn’t she called? _Because we were in danger_ , came the thought right away. Because Tamao was terrified she would be the break Kanna needed to get through their guard, to seriously hurt her. Or…

“Hao,” they both cried at the same time. Jeanne let go of Tamao, looking around.

“Where is he?”

“She flung something at him,” Jeanne recalled. “Something like… Something like a net, except it was metal. It bit into my arm and did that,” she explained, pointing to the long gashes that bled still.

Tamao went pale.

“A metal net? Jeanne, he’s allergic. We need to find him.”

Jeanne swallowed and looked at her claws. She remembered the Northernmost Witch’s words, how the cold iron pin was supposedly enough to kill Hao. If that was the case, a whole net? He would be as good as dead if they did not find him quickly.

They split up without another word. It was easier said than done to find _anything_ in this maze-like nonsensical room. Jeanne went down, Tamao went up; and yet Jeanne encountered the witch’s body several times. She caught glimpses of Tamao hurrying up staircases, sometimes leaping to another, climbing across walls. She was afraid for her, but she did not call out. They couldn’t afford to be too cautious. She needed to trust her to be alright.

Just as she was considering a leap of her own, having met yet another dead end, Tamao called: “I found him!”

Jeanne stopped at the edge of her platform and looked up. She couldn’t see them immediately. “I don’t see you! Keep talking to me!”

So Tamao did. “I’m fighting with this thing. It’s – it’s stuck to him, he’s not talking, I need you here!”

Jeanne focused on the voice and not the words, not the terror she heard in it. She just needed a lighthouse and Tamao needed to be it. She climbed up as fast as she could, jumping distances she had previously considering too great. Then, suddenly, she was back where they’d parted. Tamao was waving from a spot just above, and her arm now sported long red gashes too. Jeanne’s heart wrenched. “I’m coming! Take it off him!”

There was a smell in the air, something metallic and oddly floral. Jeanne sped up, negotiating with the hard corners and the nonsensical staircases to find herself climbing with just her arms around the ledge Tamao and Hao were on. First she got an elbow on it, kicking with her legs; then she caught a glimpse of Tamao.

Her friend was a right mess, hair stuck to her brow, pricks and lines from the mesh all over her arms. There was material stuck to her, too, something nauseatingly feathery and… melty.

Hao just lay there. He was not moving at all.

With a hard push, Jeanne forced herself up, scraping her knee on the stone. The floral smell came from him; from where she now sat, spent, she could see where the metal had dug into him, melting his skin with no effort at all. There were feathers everywhere, and bark-like skin torn off on the floor.

“I’ll help you,” she muttered, fighting the nausea. Tamao had rolled him onto his back to try and keep the mesh from tearing into his torso. She already had most of it worked off him, but it had snagged around his feet, around his left hand, and she struggled to fight evenly on all fronts, lest something melt completely off before she was done. With Jeanne they each took a foot; Jeanne cut through the wire with her claws, throwing big chunks of the net off the platform until nothing remained anywhere near him. They had gotten his hand last, and one finger was completely black. His ring finger, like her.

Jeanne smothered the thought immediately. There was no telling if the Goblin King was alive; if in a definitely twisted way she had not managed to fulfill the witch’s desire. His face was a mask of agony and death; against Tamao’s warm skin he seemed as much a corpse as Kanna now was. Rebellion lurched in her stomach. They would not lose him like this. She refused.

“Hao,” Tamao was calling, her face a mess of tears and blood. Jeanne’s. Hers. Hao’s, too, streaking gold across her lips. “Hao, wake up. Please, wake up.”

Human words had power here. Jeanne had seen it. She, too, called. “Wake up. I demand you wake up.”

Neither knew their powers fully yet, neither could be sure, and yet it was so soft a feeling when it worked. The Goblin King opened pale eyes to gaze at them, at Tamao who still held him. He seemed far away. Distant.

He smiled, and it was bitter.

“You won. Congratulations.” His voice was but a sliver of sound. “You can go home, now.”

He was fraying at the edges, Jeanne realized. Like an old painting ripped at the seams of the canvas.

Tamao shook her head, tried to speak. He moved the hand Jeanne was not holding to her face, trying to wipe his blood off her. In the distance, a rumbling sound of stone screaming. “You have to. The Labyrinth dies with me, unless you bring it home with you.”

The girls glanced at each other. Tokageroh, Jeanne thought. Ponchi, Conchi, Tamao thought. They’d _walked_ and _run_ and _yelled_ across the Labyrinth; they knew it was chockfull of life. Hao could not preserve it; he was asking them to, now. If they didn’t go this instant, if they somehow got stuck here and he died, they all would, too.

They shared all they knew in one look. Then Tamao batted his weak hand away. “Jeanne,” she said, her voice clear this time. “My blood can help. He did it once before.”

“It was just a wound,” Hao protested. “You won’t have enough for this.”

“She will,” Jeanne said. “Because we are human and our words have power. Tamao, what do you need?”

Her friend was inspecting her arms. Many scrapes, but no good source. “I need it to…” And then she hesitated, looked at Hao. He had been the one to direct her, last time.

“You don’t have time,” he struggled once more.

Jeanne frowned. “We are doing it anyways. Why are you fighting us? I thought the Goblin King more selfish than this.”

“Shows what you know,” he sniped back, for a second back to his mischievous smirk.

Then Tamao bent down towards him and pressed her lips to him. He let out an off sound, like a wounded animal. Jeanne froze, not sure of what to think, or do. Around them more of the Labyrinth was coming undone. She wanted to help, to hold them; so that was what she did, holding Hao’s wounded hand with hers, holding Tamao’s where it supported the Goblin King’s head.

Then Tamao came up for breath. Her mouth was bleeding red. Jeanne’s heart jumped.

“Are you…?”

“She bit her tongue,” Hao explained, in a voice that seemed at last a little stronger. His face was twisted into something that could be relief, or lust. When he spoke she saw red in his mouth.

“I’ll heal,” Tamao said, speaking it into reality. “We all will.”

Jeanne took stock of all their wounds. Of the mixture of silver, red, and gold around them.

“We will heal,” she repeated. “And the world will not fall down.”

The rumbling fell away into the silence. Hao’s form stopped flickering. Jeanne could see his wounds healing, one after the other.

They had won.

“The world will not fall down,” Tamao repeated, and they squeezed each other’s hands, tight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I only found them after writing this chapter, but here are some celtic wedding vows that echo a lot with the confrontation within the trio in my mind. I'll let you decide what to think of it:
> 
> “Ye are Blood of my Blood, and Bone of my Bone.  
> I give ye my Body, that we Two might be One.  
> I give ye my Spirit, `til our Life shall be Done.  
> You cannot possess me for I belong to myself  
> But while we both wish it, I give you that which is mine to give  
> You cannot command me, for I am a free person  
> But I shall serve you in those ways you require  
> and the honeycomb will taste sweeter coming from my hand.”


	15. You remind me of the babe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Real?"

Aboveground / After

The trail snaked upwards to an old gnarly tree. It must have been hundreds of years old, trunk thick as a horse. Bending away from the drop, it bowed towards its brethren, the many trees whispering around them in the same wind that toyed with his hair. He walked a little ahead, the solemnity gone from his limbs. His left hand, the one with the rotten finger, held a long stick he had picked as his very own, like a child.

She wondered how long it had been since he had come to the human world. Free from the crown, unfettered, in the true sense of the word. Not putting on any kind of pretense for any kind of Challenger.

He stopped at the top of the grassy trail, wavering there for a single instant before glancing her way.

“She’s usually the one trailing behind. Getting winded?”

“It’s not trailing behind,” she protested gently, though the smile was teasing. Mostly teasing. “It’s appreciating the sights. I’d never come here before.”

“Humans tend to miss out on a lot," and there was some acidity in the tone. Some spite, not really directed at her. Jeanne would have taken this bait; she did not. Instead she took in a deep breath of the forest air and gestured to the world around them.

“It’s never too late. See?”

She smiled, and the tension on his face vanished.

“The light is beautiful here,” he murmured as she joined him at the base of the tree. Raising a hand, he ran it through her hair, replaced a few wayward strands of pink. “Warm. Pleasant.”

“We will bring it home with us,” she promised, and with a caress to his hand she walked past him and to the cliffside. Behind the tree the ground gave away sharply, revealing a river much below, bordered by a great many more trees. Fairy places, hideouts, mazes and castles. The wind played rougher there, but neither of them was afraid. They gazed out to the valley below, its aegean waters and the vast expanse of the wild.

“What do you think exists there?”

Tamao was awash with wonder, taking it all in.

“It is yours to dream,” he reminded.

Still, she insisted: “I don’t have to do it alone. Come on, help me. I can see… phasmatidae the size of people.”

“Phasmatidae?”

“Stick bugs. Jeanne told me about them. They look like leaves and sticks, so much you’d never realize you are being watched.”

He chuckled.

“Grand idea. They can eat my Challengers.”

“Or guide them through treacherous roots. Make sure they do not go where they should not. Your turn.”

He narrowed his eyes, met hers. And then, made an effort.

“Living mist. Concealing the paths and forging new ones.”

She smiled appreciatingly, at his attempt, and at the idea, too.

“Protecting the eyes of the most fragile. I like it.”

“I feel like I should remind you we are not supposed to help,” he drawled, leaning in to dwarf her against the truck of the ancient tree. Tamao smiled bravely, knowing the cage would open if she asked.

“You are not. Jeanne and I are free agents, though, aren’t we?”

It could have been a blow, but it was not.

“And we can draw you in with us,” and she smiled at him, soft and moonlike, and then she took his hand, and drew him to her.

** Goblin Castle / After **

Back in the throne room, Jeanne presided over a thick assembly of goblins of all kinds. Manta sat at her hand. The last remaining witch was not there, but there was a pumpkin kid spying on the windowsill. Hao would have pushed it to its death; Jeanne left him alone. She was not afraid of being seen, anymore.

“You can make them lose track of time for thirteen hours,” she conceded. On her right hand, a glove of fine material kept her iron claws at bay. “But only for thirteen hours. That is traditional.”

The goblin who had been arguing their case pouted exaggeratedly, but Jeanne continued, a teasing smile on her lips. “You can go very far in thirteen hours already. Drop them off the shore in a foreign country. Lead them to the top of a mountain. Put some effort in the trick.”

“I see you’re learning,” Hao called from behind. “Not using big words today?”

“I can adapt to my audience,” she replied, tilting her head all the way back to glance at them. Her smile widened as Tamao stepped in behind them. “What did you bring me?”

“Are you a child, that you would want presents?”

Their arrival had sent the goblin audience clattering away. One retreating shadow grabbed the pumpkin spy. Manta flew away in a great haste, still not quite fond of the Goblin King and knowing the feeling was mutual. Tamao glimpsed Ponchi and Conchi, waved at them amicably, and then Jeanne was standing and drawing her into a hug.

“Yes, I must be a child,” she drawled back to Hao. “Because this feels like Christmas.”

He hissed in mock offense, and Tamao took his hand, bringing them into the embrace. “No fighting.”

“Yes fighting,” Jeanne teased, and stole a refugee flower in her ear. She carefully sniffed at it. “Real?”

“As real as this is,” Hao snarked, before leaning in to bite the flower from her hand.

Jeanne smiled.

“Ah. Real enough, then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There it is! The project, in full. It was a beast to tackle and I'm so happy with the result. I hope you enjoyed it too.
> 
> Once more I want to thank Cargodin for their wonderful art. I can't thank them enough and I hope you'll all visit her twitter to thank them yourselves: https://twitter.com/Cargodin
> 
> I also want to thank TsukasaLiR for supporting me through this. She's just published her magnum opus, Eternal Dragons. Please go support her!

**Author's Note:**

> There is a bunch of references and cameos in these lines. I won’t explain them all, but the bar is a real bar in Paris called “The Reflection”. Paris I University is a very well-known university in the city, in a neighborhood that definitely embodies the picturesque skylines and façades of Paris. It does offer drama programs in real life. As a medical student, Jeanne probably spends her university terms at Paris V Descartes.
> 
> There will be a rhyme and reason to the chapter titles. See if you can guess it!


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